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GOD    IN    HIS   WOI^p  .v«^^ 


AN   INTERPRETATION 


NEW    YORK 
HARPER   &    BROTHERS,   FRANKLIN    SQUARE 


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Copyright,  1890,  by  Harper  &  Brothers. 

All  rights  reserved. 


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CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION 

What  is  Interpretation  ?  Real  Knowledge.  Realism  in 
Art.  Christian  Realism.  The  Guide  to  the  Interpre- 
tation of  Human  Life.  The  Disturbing  Element. 
Meaning  of  Association  —  in  Nature ;  in  Man  ;  as 
unfolded  by  Christ.  The  Complete  Revelation. 
The  Real  Conviction  of  Sin.  Christian  Interpreta- 
tion of  History.  The  First  Three  Christian  Cen- 
turies. A  Revision  of  Historical  Judgments.  The 
Waste  of  Youth.  Realism  of  the  Gospel.  Our 
Lord's  Resurrection.  Correspondence  of  Christ  to 
Nature.  The  Kingdom  of  the  Real.  The  Theo- 
logical Revolt  against  Nature.  Reality  of  Imagina- 
tion in  the  Gospel.  Is  the  Gospel  Life  practicable? 
A  Life  of  Surprises.  The  Gospel  Uncompromising. 
The  Children  of  the  Kingdom  in  the  World xi  to  xli 


FIRST    BOOK 

From  the  Beginning 

Mastery  of  the  Divine  Life.  The  Two  Voices. 
The  Pride  of  Intellect.  Limitations  of  the  Under- 
standing. The  Direct  Way.  All  Truth  is  of  Love. 
Man's  First  Estate.  The  Epos  of  Human  Error. 
Grace  is  from  the  Beginning.  The  Spirit  and  the 
Word.  The  Divine  Delight  in  the  Christ.  Human 
Love  begotten  by  the  Divine.    The  Religious  Instinct. 


CONTENTS. 

Conditions  affecting  the  Development  of 
Ancient  Faith.  The  Office  of  Sorrow.  Prophecy. 
The  Hebrew  Prophetic  Movement.  State  Rehgions 
and  the  Popular  Faith.  Early  Aryan  Faith. 
The  Vedic  Hymns.  Primitive  meaning  of  Sacrifice. 
Spiritual  Origin  of  Polytheism.  Nature  taken  to 
Heart.  The  Spiritual  Drama  of  the  Dawn.  Ori- 
gin of  Ancestor  Worship.  "Familiar  Spirits."  The 
Spiritual  Ground  of  Metempsychosis.  A  Natural 
Faith.  The  Earth  the  Centre  of  two  Movements 
—  of  Flight  and  of  Return.  The  Protest  of  Bud- 
dhism. The  Gospel  of  the  Nirvana.  Hellenic 
Development  of  Faith.  Characteristics  of  Hel- 
lenism. Development  of  a  Hierarchy  and  of  a  Dra- 
matic Ritual.  The  Oracles.  Pagan  Tradition.  The 
Heroic  Element  in  the  Sacred  Brotherhoods.  The 
Orphic  Sect.  Connection  with  Apollo's  Worship ; 
with  special  Rites ;  with  the  Beginnings  of  Science 
and  Art.  Magical  Interpretation  of  Nature.  Be- 
ginnings of  a  Reaction.  The  Titanism  of  Art. 
Growth  of  Greek  Tragedy.  The  Shifting  of  all 
Interests  from  a  Divine  toward  a  Human  Centre. 
Perils  of  Institutional  Development.  The  Titanism 
of  Philosophy.  The  Sophists.  Socrates.  Plato 
and  Aristotle.  The  Growth  of  Scepticism.  The 
Sacred  Mysteries.  Expression  of  the  Popular 
Faith.  The  Reality  of  this  Faith.  The  Two  Pres- 
ences. Significance  of  Persephone  in  the  Eleusinian 
Gospel.  The  Systematic  Development  of  Faith  in- 
evitable. The  Divine  Ordinance  of  System,  involv- 
ing the  Quickness  of  Death.  Lapses  contemplated 
in  the  Divine  Plan.  The  Seeds  of  Degeneration  in 
the  Mysteries.  A  General  Tendency  of  all  Human 
Organisation.  The  Delusion  of  Enthusiasm.  The 
Glory  of  all  Beginnings.  Description  of  the  Eleu- 
sinian Mysteries.  The  Great  Mother.  Spiritual 
Meanings.     Dionysus  the  Liberator.      The  Law  of 


CONTENTS.  vii 

Repetition  in  Religious  Development.  The  Fore- 
shadowing of  the  Christ  in  the  Mysteries.  The 
Kingdom  of  Fear,  Ancient  Conceptions  of  the 
Underworld.  The  Two  Dynasties.  The  Elemental 
Conflict.  The  Borderland  of  the  Unseen.  The 
Eleusinian  Deliverance.  The  Conduct  of  the  Dead. 
Hermes  Psychopompos.  Faith  in  the  Lord  and 
Lady  of  the  West.  Fluctuations  of  Hope  and 
Fear.     The  Roman  Death.     A  Retrospect.  ...  i  to  85 


SECOND  BOOK 

The  Incarnation 

The  Coming  of  the  Bridegroom.  In  Caesar's 
Shadow.  The  Human  Limitation.  "  Unto  us 
a  Son  is  Born."  The  Veiling  of  Omnipotence.  A 
Human  Revelation.  Restoration  of  the  Original 
Type.  Divinity  Veiled  but  not  Disguised.  The 
Self-Manifest  Divinity.  The  Negative  Impression 
of  Christ's  Divinity.  Clearing-up  Work  of  Criticism. 
The  Special  Sonship  a  Spiritual  Apprehension.  The 
Indwelling  Father.  The  Hosannas  of  the  Children. 
Christ's  Heritage  of  a  Perverse  Nature.  A  Divinely- 
guarded  Childhood.  The  Temptation.  "Whom 
the  Father  hath  Sanctified."  Sinlessness  of  Christ, 
Perfectness  with  Frailty.  The  "  Power  over  all 
Flesh."  The  Miracles.  Forgiveness  of  Sins.  The 
Resurrection.  The  Word.  Correspondence  to 
Nature.  Divine  Traits  in  Nature  and  in  Christ. 
Spontaneity.  The  Germinative  Principle.  The 
Abundant  Life.  The  Son  Completes  the  Father's 
Work  in  Nature  and  in  Human  Nature.  Realism  of 
Nature  and  of  the  Christ  Life.  Nature  Glorified 
in  Christ.  The  Authoritative  Appeal.  Our  Lord's 
Resurrection  reveals  what  Nature  intimates.       Sal- 


CONTENTS. 

vation  incidental  to  Life.  Salvation  in  Nature.  The 
Eternal  Passion.  The  Meaning  of  Pain.  The 
Pathos  of  the  Divine  Anger.  The  Natural  Meaning 
of  Christ's  Sacrifice.  Justice  not  a  Divine  Attribute. 
The  Real  Judgment.  The  Meannig  of  Prayer. 
Faith.  The  Chosen.  God's  Kingdom  not  a  House 
divided  against  itself.  Catholicity  of  Faith.  Cor- 
respondence of  Nature  to  Faith.  THE  Kingdom 
OF  Heaven.  The  Child-Spirit.  The  Newness  of 
Life.  Freedom  of  the  Children.  Freedom  from 
Care  ;  from  the  Power  of  Worldliness ;  from  Out- 
ward Obligation.  The  Gospel  of  Release.  Deliver- 
ance from  a  Mechanical  Religion.  Love  as  Law. 
Self-restrained  Harmony  of  the  Kingdom.  The 
Eternal  Life.  Earthly  Life  not  a  Probation.  Christ 
gives  us  no  Definite  Indications  of  the  Future  Life. 
The  Kingdom  not  opposed  to  Nature.  The  Com- 
plete Reconciliation.  We  are  reconciled  to  all  of 
Nature.  The  Lesson  of  the  Sea.  The  Divine  Ordi- 
nance of  Darkness.  The  Divine  Ordinance  of 
Death.  The  Earthly  Reprisal.  Symbolism.  The 
Heavenly  enfolding  and  the  Earthly  unfolding.  .87  to  182 


THIRD  BOOK 

The  Divine  Human  Fellowship 

The  Second  Incarnation.  The  Sign  of  Mastery  in 
Service.  The  Ultimate  Gospel  unfolded  in  Human 
Brotherhood.  A  Continuous  Revelation.  A  Chart- 
less  Kingdom.  Truth  only  from  the  Life.  The 
Galilean  Community.  Our  Lord's  Attitude  to- 
ward Judaism.  The  New  and  the  Old.  Promise  of 
the  Paraclete.  The  Testament  of  Christian  Proph- 
ecy. The  Test  of  the  Spirit.  The  Departed 
Christ  a  Reinforcement  of  Spiritual  Growth.      The 


CONTENTS.  ix 

Pentecost.  Life  of  the  Community  at  Jerusalem. 
A  Household  of  Faith.  Correspondence  of  this 
Fellowship  to  Nature.  The  New  Society  based  upon 
no  Theory.  The  Awful  Presence  of  Love.  Ananias 
and  Sapphira.  A  Natural  and  Wholesome  Ecstasy. 
Absence  of  Asceticism.  The  Paradise  of  the  Re- 
generate. The  Frailty  of  this  Social  Manifestation. 
The  Lapse  of  even  the  Regenerate  contemplated  in 
the  Divine  Plan.  Wisdom  justified  of  all  her  Chil- 
dren. Arbitrary  distinctions  between  the  World  and 
the  Kingdom.  NATURAL  INTIMATIONS  OF  Human 
Association.  Divinely  ordained  Violence.  No 
arbitrary  Standard  of  Simplicity.  The  Quickness  of 
Use.  Agreement  of  the  Natural  with  the  Spiritual 
Law.  Strength  and  Weakness  of  the  First 
Christian  Society.  The  Spiritual  Value  of  In- 
stability. The  Clinging  of  the  Disciples  to  Judaism. 
The  Martyrdom  of  Stephen.  Stephen  and  Paul. 
Paul's  Apostolate.  His  Attitude  toward  Jerusa- 
lem. A  New  Religion.  Paul's  Doctrine.  Difference 
between  him  and  the  Disciples.  His  Reaction  against 
Judaism  emphasises  Judaism  in  his  Doctrine.  Christ 
his  Substitute  for  Judaism.  His  Spiritual  Exaltation. 
Causes  of  the  Marvellous  Spread  of  Christianity.  / 
Its  Westward  Movement.  The  Vitality  of  the 
Gospel.  Development  of  Christian  Thought  con- 
cerning Christ.  The  Glory  of  Ante-Nicene  Chris- 
tianity. The  World  in  the  Church.  Official 
Recognition  of  Christianity.  The  Effect  of  the 
Imperial  Alliance.  Degeneration  of  the  Western  v' 
Church.  Natural  Tradition.  The  World  and  ^ 
THE  Kingdom.  Civilisation  as  shown  in  History. 
Divine  Purposes  accomplished  through  Human  Vio- 
lence. Worldly  Philosophy  of  the  Worldly  Scheme. 
Its  Millennial  Anticipations.  A  Consideration  of 
this  Plea.  The  Divine  Life  in  the  Worldly  Scheme.  ■/ 
The  Leaven  of  New  Life.      Rhythmic  Aspiration  in 


CONTENTS. 

Art.  The  Christ-Life  as  affecting  Worldly  Progress. 
The  Advance  of  the  Kingdom  at  every  step  in  this 
Progress.  The  Weakness  of  the  World  Illustrated 
in  its  Triumphs.  Unvitality  of  the  Worldly  Scheme 
in  itself.  Vanity  of  the  Sociological  Millennium. 
The  Divine  Issue.  The  Children  of  the  King- 
dom. They  accept  the  Gospel.  Their  Hidden  Life. 
It  is  the  Mechanical  Worldly  System  that  is  conspic- 
uous. Growth  of  the  Seed  while  Men  Sleep. 
Faith  of  the  Children.  They  are  not  Ouietists.  In 
every  Emergency  they  bear  witness.     The  Worldly 

^  Simulation  of  the  Kingdom.  Conceptions  of  the  Ideal 
Spiritual  Society.  No  unfolding  of  Truth  beyond 
the  Life.  Only  by  entering  into  the  Fellowship  can 
we  comprehend  its  Development.  The  Strength  of 
Association  as  shown  in  the  Worldly  Scheme.     The 

^Mystery  of  Ungodliness.  The  Mystery  of  Godli- 
ness.     Conclusion 183  to  270 


INTRODUCTION 


INTRODUCTION 


WHAT  is  herein  written  is  individual,  as  is  all  inter- 
pretation, but  has  been  without  previous  design  as 
to  its  undertaking  or  its  shaping.     It  cannot  be 
said  that  it  was  of  compulsion,  since  it  is  only     what  is 
in   an   absolutely   free    movement   that   one   is     tatlonT 
caught  and  carried  forward,  as  if  independently 
of  all  self-determination,  to  an  issue  of  which  there  is  no 
prevision.      It   has  not  been  the  result  of  any  striving 
after   truth.      An   interpretation   is   not   an   invention,    a 
mental  construction,  a  speculation,  but  a  vision  of  living 
reality  as  seen  in  the  light  of  its  own  life. 


II 

But  even  in  interpretation  there  are  different  fields  of 
vision.     As  one  may  read  a  book  with  reference  merely  to 
its  grammar  or  style,  so  one  may  regard  Nature 
with  reference  merely  to  the  mathematics  of  her  „  ^^f, 

■'  Knowledge. 

movements,  and  he  will  thus  gain  real  knowl- 
edge, and  valuable,  as  applicable  to  the  material  uses  of 
life ;  and,  incidentally,  he  will  receive  larger  meanings  and 
impressions.  But,  if  he  will  put  aside  these  limitations  as 
to  the  scope  and  motive  of  his  regard,  and,  as  a  lover  of 
Nature,  follow  her  living  ways,  she  will  reveal  herself  to 
him.  He  will  cease  to  make  mere  generalisations  and 
classifications,  and  to  confine  knowledge  to  nomenclature. 


xiv  INTRODUCTION. 

Laying  aside  his  mathematical  chart  of  Nature,  he  will 
confront  her  vitalities,  and  so  leave  the  field  of  his  mere 
understanding,  entering  into  a  responsive  and  sympathetic 
association  with  her,  expecting  her  precious  communica- 
tions, as  a  youthful  lover  awaits  the  shy  revealings  of  the 
heart  of  his  beloved.  It  does  not  matter  where  he  starts. 
He  may  follow  the  bees  as  they  fertilise  flowers,  and  there 
will  be  unfolded  to  him  a  beautiful  mystery.  If  he  will 
follow  the  butterflies,  he  will  receive  an  evangel,  not  ex- 
cluding a  hint  of  the  Resurrection.  It  is  thus  that  Science 
is  being  born  again,  the  meek  inheriting  her  earth.  It 
is  true  that  a  patient  witness  to  Nature,  like  Darwin,  will 
be  followed  by  speculative  theorists,  who  will  ignore  the 
life,  apotheosising  a  notion,  as  in  making  a  God  of  Natu- 
ral Selection.  The  genuine  and  sincere  agnosticism  is  the 
meekness  of  those  content  with  the  unfoldings  of  a  real 
life,  excluding  the  arbitrary  and  supposititious.  The  true 
agnostics  keep  to  the  simplicity  of  faith,  instead  of  con- 
structing a  kind  of  scientific  mythology,  in  which  Laws 
and  Forces  parade  with  Olympian  majesty. 


Ill 

Concurrently  with  the  new  movement  of  Science, 
following  Nature's  invitation  to  her  intimacies,  there  has 
been  in  all  the  fields  of  Art  a  revolt  against  Aca- 
Reahsm     ^^^^{q^  traditions  —  a  protest  against  convention- 
alism, allegorical  conceits  and  loose  romanticism. 
It  is  a  plea  for  Nature  and  for  the  ideal  worth  of  all  her 
embodiments,  however   grotesque  or  faultful  —  thus  ab- 
solving the  ideal  from  formal  perfectness,  and  holding  it 
only  to  the  justification  of  its  own  children.     Yet,  in  its 
highest  demand,  this  Realism  would  insist  upon  the  spirit- 


IM/iGINATION    THE   SISTER    OF  FAITH.  xv 

ual  genesis  of  all  artistic  representations  —  upon  their 
faithfulness  to  an  everlasting  type,  upon  their  sincerity  and 
spontaneity,  and  upon  their  vital  sympathy  and  humor,  so 
that  they  shall,  like  all  of  Nature's  growths,  have  the  vital 
warmth  of  the  sunshine  and  the  freshness  of  the  dew. 
While  holding  to  reality,  these  representations  transcend 
not  only  all  mental  anticipation,  but  the  real  suggestion, 
having,  like  the  unfoldings  of  Nature,  aspiration,  culmina- 
tion, and,  as  a  final  issue,  surprises. 

Art  is  pre-eminently  an  expression  of  human  nature,  yet, 
though  keeping  to  the  type,  it  transcends  and  contradicts 
human  experience,  suggesting  in  its  rhythmic  harmonies 
those  of  the  divine  kingdom,  so  that  Imagination  is  in- 
deed the  true  sister  of  Faith.  Its  free  movement  follow- 
ing a  mysterious  vital  chemistry,  and  repudiating  conscious 
regulation,  takes  us  out  of  ourselves,  as  we  have  made  our- 
selves, and  within  the  confines  of  our  heavenly  realm. 
That  is  not,  therefore,  a  genuine  realism  which  denies  to 
Imagination  its  realm  of  the  air  and  the  freedom  of  its 
wings;  which,  while  it  must  feel  its  way,  determines  to 
grope  in  the  field  of  human  pathology,  ignoring  health 
and  hope,  and  identifying  itself  with  pessimism;  and 
which,  in  its  avoidance  of  romanticism,  fails  also  of  heroic 
moments  and  of  all  the  illusions  that  wait  upon  light 
and  love. 

IV 

It  would  be  strange  if  a  tendency  so  manifest  in  Science 
and  Art  should  not  be  noticeable  in  all  our  life,  and  es- 
pecially in  our  Faith. 

Always  and  independently  of  our  own  determination, 
our  lives  are  bound  to  the  imperative  realities  of  Nature, 
within  us  as   well    as   without.     But  it  is  the  response. 


xvi  INTRODUCTION. 

within  the  field  of  our  ft-ee  choice,  of  our  wills  to  the 
Father's  will  which  determines  our  spiritual  life,  or  which 

is  rather  the  submission  of  all  our  conscious  ac- 
R^elnir    tivities  to  the  mastery  of  the  divine  life  and  its 

determination.  This  divine  life  is  shown  to  us 
only  in  the  Real — in  Nature  and  in  Man,  and  chiefly 
in  Christ.     This  is  Christian   Realism. 


If  we  would  be  Christians  on  our  conscious  side — in 

our  sensibilities  and  impressions,  as  well  as  in  our  activ- 

The  Guide  ^*^^^'  ^^^  ^^^  knowledge  must  be  born  again  — 

to  the     including  our  interpretation  of  human  life. 

pretat'iOT"       Following  the  lines  of  human  development, 

of        we  become  aware  of  an  element  of  confusion 

Human   Life.   ..  ,  .  -.,... 

disturbmg  our  field  of  vision.  It  matters  not 
what  may  be  our  theory  as  to  the  origin  of  man, —  whether 
he  was  evolved  from  lower  species,  or,  if  not,  whether  he 
was  first  of  all  a  wild  man  (as  Nature  is  wild),  and  any 
conclusion  we  may  reach  as  to  either  of  these  questions 
must  be  wholly  imaginary, — it  is  certain  that  there  has 
been  human  degeneration;  and  we  are  more  distinctly 
conscious  of  this  in  ourselves  than  in  any  general  view  of 
humanity.  There  is  nothing  in  the  lower  animals  corre- 
sponding to  human  selfishness ;  whatever  there  is  in  them 
of  violence  is  the  following  of  a  divine  intent;  human  vices 
have  no  counterpart  in  their  development.  And  the  first 
men,  if  wild,  were  at  least  true  to  their  natural  wildness, 
until  they  became  perverted.  The  perversion  has  contin- 
ued with  every  transmutation  of  human  energy  to  higher 
forms  —  higher  in  the  sense  that  they  are  more  refined. 
We  are,  then,  following  not  only  the  ways  of  life,  in  this 
study,  but  the  ways  of  spiritual  death  also ;  and  we  are 


THE    DiyiNE    STANDARD    OF    TRUTH.  xvii 

helped  by  the  Gospel  of  Nature  and  of  Christ  to  distin- 
guish between  them.  In  this  guidance  Nature  is  only 
preparatory  to  Christ's  completeness,  feeding  us  upon  her 
locusts  and  wild  honey  until  he  gives  us,  in  his  flesh  and 
blood,  (his  human  revelation  of  the  Father,)  the  heavenly 
bread  and  wine  and  we  behold  in  him  the  expression  of 
the  divine  life  after  our  own  type.  Nature  shows  us  the 
same  life  after  her  types,  until  we  come  to  man,  in  whom 
the  expression  is  blurred  and  confused  by  the  counter-cur- 
rents of  his  self-will.  For  the  human  expression  of  the 
divine  life,  therefore,  we  must  look  to  the  Son  of  Man. 
The  indications  given  us  by  Nature  are  not  reversed  but 
continued  and  completed  in  him  —  so  continued  and 
completed  that  they  are  themselves  for  the  first  time 
clearly  comprehended  because  of  their  illustration  in  his 
life.  This  illustration  of  Nature  culminates  in  his  Resur- 
rection ;  for  what  are  her  teaching  images,  signifying  the 
renewal  of  life  (her  very  name  meaning  "  the  forever 
being  born  ")  to  his  rising  again,  which  shows  forth  im- 
plicitly our  own  ?  Christ,  then,  as  showing  the  unper- 
verted  expression  of  the  divine  life  in  the  human,  must 
ever  be  present  to  us  as  a  divine  standard  of  truth  in  our 
interpretation  of  life. 

VI 

Let  us  take,  for  example,  the  meaning  of  association, 
as  indicated  in  Nature,  as  expressed  in  human  history, 
and  as  unfolded  by  our  Lord. 

Nature  is  uniform  in  all  her  laws ;  yet,  when  Association 
we  regard  her  vitalities,  we  are  first  impressed     Nature, 
by  their  individualism  rather  than  by  their  co- 
operation.    Nature's  ultimates  are  individual,  and  each 
individual  is  in  some  respects  distinguished   from  every 


xviii  INTRODUCTION. 

other,  though  a  certain  uniformity  of  habit  is  apparent, 
so  well  expressed  by  Wordsworth's  characterisation  of  a 
grazing  herd  : 

•'There  are  forty  feeding  like  one." 

Each  individual  seems  to  live  for  itself  alone,  and  to 
live  at  the  expense  of  other  life.  But  a  closer  following  of 
Nature's  ways  discloses  the  co-operation  and  interdepen- 
dence of  all  her  activities,  so  that  insects,  in  the  satisfac- 
tion of  appetite,  secure  the  continuance  of  even  lower  life. 
We  note  also  a  tendency  of  the  individual  toward  a  fixed 
local  establishment  of  itself,  as  the  plants  take  root  in  the 
earth,  and  animals  have  a  homing  instinct.  But  a  larger 
view  discloses  compulsory  dislocations  and  migrations  in 
the  fulfilment  of  a  purpose  hidden  from  the  individuals 
concerned.  The  question  as  to  conscious  individual  co- 
operation with  the  divine  will  cannot  occur  until  we  con- 
front an  order  of  beings  having  wills  capable  of  choice 
and  therefore  of  resistance. 

In  man  we  behold  such  a  being,  and  his  history  is  a 
record  of  such  resistance,  which  is  nowhere  more  manifest 
than  in  his  associative  development.  We  note 
intense  individualism  here,  as  in  all  natural  life, 
notwithstanding  the  compulsion  of  the  social  instinct, 
which  is  strongest  in  man ;  but  we  see  this  individualism 
taking  unnatural  shapes  in  the  various  manifestations  of 
human  selfishness ;  and  these  enter  into  and  distort  the 
associative  development  itself,  characterising  communities 
and  nations,  and  maintained  by  even  religious  sanctions. 
All  the  refinements  of  civilisation  serve  only  to  disguise 
them,  the  ultimate  refinement  which  humanity  can  ever 
reach  not  eradicating  them,  but  holding  them  in  the  leash 
of  silence,  in  an  equilibrium  of  selfishness  balanced  against 
selfishness,  which  we  call  justice. 


THE   REAL  AND    IDEAL    UNITED  IN   CHRIST,    xix 

Now,  to  one  regarding  this  development  without  any 
divine  standard  applicable  both  to  human  action  and  nat- 
ural operation,  there  is  an  intricacy  of  confusion ;  and  he 
might  easily  infer  not  only  that  selfishness  in  these  ab- 
normal shapes  is  natural  to  man  and  ineradicable,  but  that 
the  same  quality  is  characteristic  of  all  nature.  Nor 
would  the  Divine  Being  escape  this  distortion  in  man's 
conception. 

But  now  One   comes  full  of  grace  and   truth,  who  is 
one  with  the  Father,  and  shows  not  only  an  unselfish  in- 
dividual life, — in  no  way  contradicting  Nature, 
illustrating   the    life    which    man,    holding   his    unfoided 
proper  place  in  Nature,  would  lead, —  but  also        W 
an  association  growing  out  of  love  and  develop- 
ing the  growth  of  love.     This  One  shows  us  Nature  as  she 
really  is,  and  we  see  that  she  also  is  full  of  grace  and 
truth,  revealing  the  Father,  and  that,  confronting  this  lov- 
ing human  fellowship,  the  veil  by  which  she  has  been  dis- 
guised in  our  misconception  is  put  aside.     She  has  waited 
to   bless    with    all  her   united   vitalities   a  united  human 
brotherhood. 


VII 

Thus  our  Lord  takes  away  all  our  veils  and  disguises, 
and  we  receive  the  complete  Gospel  of  a  real  life  —  so 
that  we  no  longer  distinguish  between  the  real 
and   the  ideal,  since  both  are   united   in   him.    ^  '^'^^ 

'  _  _  Complete 

The  new  life  of  the  regenerate  is  a  full  disclo-  Revelation. 
sure  of  human  degeneration.     Showing  us  our 
own  divinity — giving  us  power   to  become  the  sons  of 
God  —  he  shows  us  also  the  divinity  of  Nature,  and  what 
the  divine  is  in  itself,  in  its  reality.     All  our  notional  ne- 
gations defining  God  as  the  Infinite  and  the  Absolute,  all 


XX  INTRODUCTION. 

our  mental  constructions  of  Him,  based  upon  our  concep- 
tions of  government  and  jurisprudence  and  even  upon  our 
perverted  passions,  are  set  aside  by  our  Lord's  revelation 
of  Him.  Even  His  Almightiness  is  eclipsed  by  His  All- 
lovingness.  He  is  the  Father,  and  we  are  to  recognise 
Him  as  such,  chiefly  in  that  we  love  all  men  as  brethren. 
He  ministers  unto  us  and  not  we  unto  Him;  we  serve 
Him  only  in  serving  all  men.  In  loving  his  brother, 
whom  he  hath  seen,  man  loves  God  whom  he  hath  not 
seen.  The  loving  human  fellowship  is  the  real  divine 
communion.  The  spiritual  life  is  not  a  mystical  contem- 
plation of  divine  attributes  or  of  a  divine  essence,  it  is  the 
associative  development  of  the  Kingdom.  In  loving  one 
another  we  find  God. 

The  presence  of  the  divine,  as  Real,  is  that  which  gives 
life  all  its  glory  and  spiritual  death  all  its  sting.  We  evade 
this  presence  when  we  substitute  for  its  real  manifestation 
some  abstract  notion  which  is  but  a  shadow  thereof  The 
anchorite  enters  not  into  a  spiritual  exaltation  but  into  the 
ecstasy  of  a  shadowy  world.  Abstruse  study  of  divine 
things  leads  into  the  same  realm.  God  is  to  be  found 
only  in  the  Real  because  He  is  a  Spirit,  since  the  Spirit  is 
manifest  only  in  some  pulsing,  throbbing  embodiment.  All 
of  Nature  shows  us  God.  All  of  Christ  shows  us  Him ; 
and  we  especially  find  Him  in  identifying  ourselves  with 
all  Humanity  in  Christ. 

VIII 

Now,  thus  led  by  our  Lord  to  this  real  fellowship  —  to 
this  festival  of  human  love,  whereof  he  always  takes  his 
place  as  the  Master,  so  that  therein  we  realise  the  divine 
love,  we  in  this  Real  Presence  also  have  revealed  to  us 
the  enormity  of  sin.     For  this  Kingdom  of  the  Real  is  a 


REAL   CONVICTION    OF   SIN.  xxi 

realm  not  only  of  wondrous  delight  but  of  wondrous  awe. 
Our  mental  regard  of  this  world  of  love  is  a  by-play  and 
a  mockery.     But  once  in  touch  with  its  realities, 

•  The 

once  entering  into  its  fellowships,  we  experience  Rg^u^^tjon 
inconceivable   joy — but  the  other  side  of  that    of  sin  in 

.1  -11  •        this  Real 

joy  IS  penitence.  And  no  one  is  really  peni-  presence, 
tent  until  he  has  returned  to  his  Father's 
house.  It  is  only  Love  entering  and  filling  our  hearts 
that  discloses  the  monstrous  shapes  of  our  perversions  — 
our  selfishness,  our  lack  of  love  and  our  betrayals  and 
denials  and  distortions  thereof.  We  then  clearly  see,  when 
we  are  in  the  large  ways  of  life,  how  our  perversions,  our 
hardness  of  heart,  made  the  way  thereto  seem  so  straight 
and  difficult.  To  the  child,  indeed,  it  is  but  a  step ;  he 
has  no  fear,  though  he  feels  the  awe.  The  innocent 
maiden  is  so  near,  hovering  shyly  always  upon  its  tremu- 
lous boundaries!  Every  mother,  it  would  seem,  should 
hold  the  divine  love  in  her  heart,  and  hear  its  whisperings 
from  baby  lips.  But  they  who  have  wandered  far,  whose 
hearts  have  been  hardened  by  resistance  to  love,  and  who, 
in  their  loves  most  of  all,  have  blasphemed  love  —  these 
are  as  dear  as  any  to  the  loving  Father,  but  how  hardly 
shall  they  enter  the  kingdom,  and,  having  entered,  what 
must  they  suffer!  It  would  be  easy  enough  for  them  to 
assent  to  any  creed,  to  betake  themselves  to  an  infinite, 
absolute  and  notionally  conceived  divinity,  to  accept  any 
purely  theological  plan  of  salvation,  to  go  through  any 
outward  form,  to  recite  prayers  and  undergo  penances,  to 
give  tithes  of  all  that  they  possess  —  but  they  confront 
no  such  elements  or  requirements.  They  are  not  striving 
for  pardon — it  is  a  forgiveness  which  is  striving  with  them. 
Their  sorrow  is  no  part  of  a  dramatic,  but  of  a  real  situa- 
tion. The  divine  is  not  remote  and  absolute,  but  a  near 
fellowship,  touching  their  lives  at  every  point,  and  espe- 


xxii  INTRODUCTION. 

daily  in  every  human  association.  They  have  found  God 
in  the  only,  the  real  way,  and  their  pains  are  incident  to 
the  travail  of  a  new  birth.  It  is  love  that  is  working  in 
them,  nevertheless  it  is  a  consuming  fire.  The  whole  heart 
is  melted  in  penitent  sorrow.  It  is  not  an  intellectual  con- 
viction, there  is  no  mental  evasion  of  the  awful  reality,  no 
reference  to  Adam  or  any  outside  Tempter;  there  is  no 
room  here  for  subtleties  or  for  doctrines.  The  old  hard 
life  is  being  broken  up,  fused  in  fervent  heat.  Love  is 
a  flame,  at  once  building  a  new  life  with  tender  cling- 
ings  and  aspirations,  and  burning  up  the  old,  scathingly, 
relentlessly. 

No  thought  of  Justice  can  occur  in  this  Presence.  That 
comes  to  those  who  are  brought  into  an  unreal  kingdom 
which  Christ  has  never  shown  us,  by  an  unreal,  doctrinal 
way.  Then  the  situation  becomes  wholly  dramatic  — 
Justice  is  met  by  Sacrifice,  and  an  imputed  righteousness 
to  the  sinner  by  imputed  sin  to  the  sinless  one. 


IX 

Christ  is  also  our  standard  of  truth  in  our  interpretation 
of  history.     We  behold  a  world  which  has  come  into  judg- 
ment—  not  the  judgment  of  outward  condem- 
telprmtion  nation,  but  of  love  searching  the  heart  of  man. 
°^        It  is  a  judgment  from  within  and  self-operative. 

History.  ,  , 

We  see  also  that,  apart  from  the  Incarnation, 
there  is  the  everlasting  Christ,  that  in  all  human  develop- 
ment there  are  indications  of  a  saving  love,  and,  notwith- 
standing the  perversions  of  religion,  of  a  saving  faith. 
There  is  the  operation  of  the  Eternal  Word,  and  there  are 
living  ways  as  well  as  the  ways  of  death. 

Even  Paganism  was,  in  the  naive  simplicity  of  its  primi- 
tive development,  a  life.     In  the  early  Aryan  faith  we  be- 


REALITY    OF   EARLY   CHRISTIANITY.  xxiii 

hold  its  purest  and  most  spiritual  form,  as  shown  in  the 
Vedic  hymns.  In  this  faith  were  caught  deeper  spiritual 
meanings  of  Nature  than  are  unfolded  to  modern  science 
or  gestheticism,  because  Nature  was  regarded  as  a  living 
Reality,  showing  the  divine  life.  And  this  life  is  apparent 
even  in  the  later  period  of  Aryan  development,  in  the 
more  dramatic  shaping  of  faith  in  the  Sacred  Mysteries. 
The  conception  of  a  Demeter  fathomed  the  profound  sym- 
pathy of  Nature  as  a  Great  Mother,  bearing  the  sorrows 
of  all  her  children ;  and  the  hopeful  image  of  Persephone 
restored  from  Hades  to  the  visible  world  was  a  foreshad- 
owing of  the  clearer  revelation  of  an  endless  life  in  the 
Resurrection  of  our  Lord.  The  fatal  defect  of  all  Pagan 
faith  was  its  lack  of  embodiment  in  a  human  fellowship 
based  upon  the  spirit  of  love. 

X 

In  the  heavenly  light  which  our  Lord  brings  to  our 
vision,  we  shall  comprehend  the  wonderful  spread  of 
Christianity  in  its  first  three  centuries,  when  it 

,.  ,  ,     .  .    ,  '  ^     The  First 

was  expandmg  through  its  own  mherent  law  ot      Three 
love,  rejecting  all  worldly  methods,  and  expres-    Christian 

'■>'->  ^  _  >- ^  Centuries. 

sing  the  vitality  of  the  Gospel,  which  is  the  vital- 
ity of  a  new  life,  wholly  real.  But  for  certain  tendencies 
toward  official  ecclesiasticism  and  asceticism  apparent 
toward  the  close  of  the  period,  this  early  Christian  life  is 
a  complete  correspondence  to  Nature;  physical  death  is 
accounted  for  nought,  as  it  is  in  Nature's  realm;  the  meek, 
unresisting  children  come  into  their  inheritance,  their 
patience  tiring  their  persecutors;  their  Hfe,  renewed  and 
kept  soft  and  tender  by  the  divine  life  to  which  they  have 
wholly  yielded  their  wills,  overcoming  the  induration  of 
the  world,  even  as  in  Nature  the  soft  new  growths  pull 


xxiv  INTRODUCTION. 

down  and  bring  to  nought  all  that  is  old  and  outworn. 
Here  was  a  kingdom  of  the  unlearned,  whose  domination 
was  over  human  hearts,  receiving  within  its  fellowship 
millions  of  slaves,  whom  Paganism  had  excluded  from  its 
Mysteries.  At  last,  however,  many  who  were  learned  in 
worldly  Avisdom,  and  some  of  whom  were  called  Fathers 
of  the  Church,  seeing  what  might  there  was  in  this  king- 
dom, began  to  translate  its  life  into  the  terms  of  their  wis- 
dom ;  and  they  asked.  Why  should  not  the  kingdoms  of 
the  world  and  the  glory  of  them  belong  to  Christ? — for- 
getting that  he  had  once  refused  them.  Then  came  Con- 
stantine  the  Great,  making  them  an  offer  of  all  of  these, 
and  they  were  tempted,  and  many  even  of  the  elect 
were  deceived. 


XI 

We  shall  also  see  that  a  divine  purpose  is  manifest  in 
ways  hidden  from  men,  in  breaking  up  established  struc- 
tures, fixed  forms,  and  traditional  bonds  —  the 

A  Revision  .  .        ,  .  .  .  _^ 

of  operation  of  a  loosmg  and  savmg  power.  One 
Historical  ^f  ^.^g  most  Striking  evidences  of  this  divine  life, 
operating  in  all  human  movements,  and  having 
no  direct  connection  with  ecclesiastical  development,  is 
the  fact  that  all  the  mechanical  systems  of  this  world  not 
only  are  made  to  subserve  a  divine  purpose,  but,  at  a 
certain  point, — just  that  point,  too,  which  would  seem  to 
be  fixed  upon  as  the  culmination  of  some  merely  worldly 
design, — are  arrested,  and  the  divine  issue  is  precipitated. 
All  the  decisive  moments  of  history  are  such  divine  sur- 
prises. These  crises  are  never  in  any  true  sense  antici- 
pated by  human  reason — the  rational  anticipadon  being 
so  limited  and  so  notional  in  its  foreshaping  of  a  suppositi- 
tious drama,  that  the  Reality  escapes  all  mental  premoni- 


DiyiNE    SURPRISES.  xxv 

tion.  Faith  presupposes  not — it  waits.  We  are  now 
approaching  such  a  crisis.  No  human  wisdom  can  pre- 
dict its  shaping  any  more  than  it  can  prevent  the  issue. 
The  air  is  full  of  auguries,  and  even  our  fiction  has  become 
very  precisely  apocalyptic.  It  is  theoretic  prophecy,  antici- 
pating the  realisation  of  perfect  scientific  and  social  eco- 
nomics—  the  Paradise  of  Outward  Comfortableness;  and 
these  expectations  are  no  nearer  the  real  truth  than  were 
the  millennial  visions  of  the  Augustan  Age  which  heralded 
a  sort  of  Imperial  Arcady  under  Cesarean  auspices — 
while  the  coming  Reality  ruined  everything  that  in  these 
visions  seemed  secure,  including  the  Empire  itself. 

"  And  after  the  Real  Issue  has  been  developed,  our  inter- 
pretation thereof  is  as  inadequate  as  our  anticipation  —  so 
insistent  is  our  dramatic  theory  in  the  philosophy  of 
history.  In  the  light  of  the  Reality  itself  we  must  often 
revise  the  verdict  of  this  philosophy,  which  is  based  upon 
a  partial  judgment,  taking  account  of  accessories  and  en- 
vironments, but  no  account  whatever  of  the  divine  and 
vital  impulse  and  meaning.  Thus  the  period  consequent 
upon  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  is  called  the  Dark 
Ages.  But,  in  truth,  the  fresh  Barbarian  life,  breaking 
down  the  imperial  structure,  was  letting  light  into  a  char- 
nel-house, and  their  rude  triumph  was  the  break  of  dawn 
for  modem  Christendom.  Palsied  as,  for  a  long  time, 
were  these  vitalities  by  the  chill  of  the  Roman  death,  they 
were  worth  far  more  to  the  world  than  the  much  vaunted 
Revival  of  Learning, —  in  them  was  the  real  Renaissance 
of  Europe,  obstructed  and  misdirected  rather  than  helped 
by  the  new  lease  of  life  extended  to  the  traditions  of 
an  older  world.  The  freedom  of  a  life  nearer  to  natural 
impulse  than  to  mental  suggestion  is  always  the  hope  of 
the  world.  We  are  forever  overestimating  the  value  of 
mtellectual  culture. 


xxvi  INTRODUCTION. 

In  periods  not  characterised  by  mental  refinement  and 
when  the  imagination  submitted  wholly  to  natural  impres- 
sions, modified  only  by  some  inward  impulse  —  also 
natural,  but  subject  to  no  intellectual  restraint  —  there  en- 
tered into  the  expression  of  faith  a  grotesque  element 
which  offends  our  modem  sensibility.  Paganism,  even  in 
its  perversion,  held  so  closely  to  Nature,  tolerating,  imi- 
tating, nay  exaggerating,  and  oftentimes  caricaturing  her 
wildness  and  violence,  that  we  are  not  surprised  by  its 
Bacchanals.  Not  having  the  same  abandon,  but  still 
grotesque,  even  to  coarseness,  were  many  of  the  medi- 
eval manifestations  of  the  popular  Christian  faith.  It 
was  an  element  reflected  in  the  art  of  that  period,  even  in 
the  details  of  cathedral  construction.  Its  most  striking 
exemplification,  perhaps,  is  in  the  old  Mystery  Plays, 
which  began  as  parts  of  the  solemn  worship  in  the  cathe- 
dral service. 

It  was  coarse  ;  it  was  even  a  travesty  of  divine  things ; 
it  was  associated  with  a  system  which  begat  many  abuses, 
and  one  of  these,  doubtless,  was  the  extreme  grossness  of 
all  religious  conceptions  which  determined  the  shaping  of 
these  sacred  comedies ;  yet  it  lies  on  the  sunny  side  of 
faith  in  its  naturalness,  its  nearness  to  laughter  in  a  divine 
presence,  its  naive  and  homely  familiarity.  If  there  is  in 
it  much  that  is  repellant,  how  much  also  is  there  that  we 
miss  —  even  as  we  miss  the  enthusiasm  which  built  the 
cathedrals  and  mustered  the  armies  of  the  Crusades. 

XII 

In  this  light,  also,  the  terrible  waste  is  disclosed  in  what 
we  moderns  call  our  economy  —  not  merely  in  that  out- 
ward economy  which  involves  so  much  loss  of  force  and 
material  through  the  strife  and  attrition  of  energies  that 


A    NATURAL    GOSPEL.  xxvii 

ought  to  be  united,  but  in  our  spiritual  economy,  which 
either  ignores  or  crucifies  all  the  fresh,  divinely  sent  life, 
flowing  into  it  for  its  salvation. 

The  newness  of  life  which  comes  with  every      Waste 
generation  is  a  divinely  ordained  force  for  our     Youth. 
social  regeneration.    Forever  the  Master  places 
the  child  in  our  midst,  as  a  symbol  of  his  kingdom — the 
power  to  renew  and  remould  our  life.     Every  child  is  a 
fresh  manifestation  of  the  Christ,  divinely  born,  sent  even 
as  he  was  sent,  for  our  inspiration  and  leadership;  and, 
received  in  this  way,  a  single  generation  of  children  would 
renovate  the  world.     Instead  of  availing  ourselves  of  this 
marvellous   power,  we  put  these  leaders  behind  us,  and 
impose  upon  them  the  hard  and  fast  mould  of  an  older 
life,  striving  with  them  to  anticipate  the  Gospel  of  our 
Lord  in  their  hearts  by  the  maxims  of  worldly  experience, 
and  the  forms  and  traditions  of  a  worldly  ecclesiasticism. 

XIII 

In  what  we  say  of  Realism  we  are  regarding  the  living 
reality,  and  our  interpretation  is  the  truth  as  seen  in  the 
light  of  the  unfolding  life.     The  unfolding  of  a 
life  is  its  Nature.      It  is  in  this  sense  that  we  say     Realism 

■'  of  the 

there  is  no  supernatural  truth.  That  which  we  Oospei. 
call  the  supernatural  world  is  a  world  of  our 
mental  construction,  and  consists  for  the  most  part  in  the 
reversal  or  denial  of  all  that  is  of  divine  ordinance  and  of 
all  divinely  unfolded  life.  Revelation  is  of  no  value  to  us, 
save  as  it  is  the  unfolding  of  a  real  life,  and,  as  such, 
It  must  be  natural.  The  incarnate  Christ  is  an  unfolding 
of  the  Father  through  the  unfolding  of  a  human  nature 
which  is  "  One  with  the  Father." 

The    Nature-Christ,    the    Eternal   Son,    revealing    the 


XXVI  ij  INTRODUCTION. 

Father,  is  in  no  wise  prevented  or  interrupted  by  the 
Christ- Nature,  the  incarnate  Word,  but  is  continued 
and  completed  thereby.  Whosoever  in  any  age  or  coun- 
try has  interpreted  the  spiritual  meanings  of  the  Nature- 
Christ,  in  childhke  faith  appropriating  the  divine  life 
through  any  hving  way,  has  had,  not  the  complete,  but 
a  saving  Gospel ;  he  has  accepted  Christ.  There  is  no 
living  way  that  is  "  some  other  way  "  than  his. 

There  is  for  us  no  Gospel  of  the  Supernatural.  The 
term  "  miracles,"  in  the  supernatural  sense,  is  not  germane 
to  the  Gospel.     Our  Lord's  expression  "  mighty  works  " 

—  which  he  says  he  does  not  of  himself — has  no  such 
meaning.  "  Ye  know  not  the  power  of  God,"  he  said ; 
and  when  we  regard  Nature  not  as  a  mechanism  —  as  in 
Paley's  similitude  of  a  watch  —  but  as  the  direct  manifes- 
tation of  the  Father,  we  are  not  surprised  by  any  degree  of 
power  shown  therein,  especially  in  response  to  the  faith  of 
the  children  of  this  Father;  nor  can  we  call  such  extraor- 
dinary manifestations  supernatural,  since  it  is  in  Nature 
that  they  occur.  The  healing  of  disease  is  in  the  line 
of  the  reparative  processes  which  are  characteristic  of 
Nature;  and  human  co-operation  with  these  processes, 
through  faith,  gives  this  restorative  power  its  full  effective- 
ness. Is  human  science  competent  to  determine  the  limi- 
tations of  this  power  ?  May  not  this  power  revive  the 
dead  ?  The  constantly  recurring  resurrection  of  the  dead 
would  be  regarded  as  natural.  How  then  can  a  single 
case  be  called  supernatural?  The  reappearance  of  a 
human  life  is  as  natural  as  its  first  appearance.     He  lived 

—  he  died, —  he  lives  again ;  is  this  series  of  terms  quite  as 
marvellous,  after  all,  as  the  usual  series  •  He  was  not  — 
he  is? 


OUR.    LORD'S    RESURRECTION. 


XIV 

The  fact  of  our  Lord's  resurrection  is  of  vital  impor- 
tance in  the  Christian's  faith.  If  it  be  taken  away,  all  the 
divine  truth  otherwise  unfolded  by  Christ  still 
remains  —  but  it  lacks  its  consummation.  It  is  r Jy^rection. 
not  important  as  a  proof  of  any  theological  doc- 
trine, but  as  an  illustration  of  the  persistence  not  only  of 
life  but  of  the  natural  type.  Nature  shows  this  truth  in 
her  own  life  and  as  to  her  own  types,  except  for  animate 
existence.  Our  Lord  would  seem  less  than  Nature  if  he 
had  not  continued  and  completed  this  unfolding  of  truth 
for  all  flesh. 

The  scientific  denial  of  the  fact  of  Christ's  resurrection 
rests  on  the  basis  of  its  singularity.  If  in  the  course  of  all 
astronomical  observation  but  a  single  comet  had  been  ob- 
served, and  that  two  or  three  thousand  years  ago,  the  fact 
would  be  denied  on  the  same  basis ;  all  heavenly  bodies 
moving  in  elliptical  orbits,  this  once  observed  occurrence 
of  an  orbit  so  entirely  singular  would  be  attributed  to  an 
optical  illusion  rather  than  credited  as  an  actual  fact. 

But  the  resurrection  is  no  more  singular  than  was  the 
whole  life  of  our  Lord  ;  and,  so  accordant  is  it  with  all 
that  is  distinctive  in  that  life,  being  necessary  to  its  com- 
pleteness, that  we  are  not  surprised  by  his  frequently  ex- 
pressed anticipation  thereof.  Contemplating  this  life  in 
all  its  course  up  to  the  moment  of  death,  we  also  entertain 
this  expectation,  which  is  as  natural  and  as  hvely  a  hope 
as  that  we  have  of  to-morrow's  sunrise.  For  it  would  be 
to  us  spiritually  what  it  would  be  to  the  physical  world  if 
the  sun  were  to  set,  never  to  rise  again,  if  he,  who  alone 
of  all  men  represented  the  restoration  of  humanity  to  the 
natural  and  heavenly  type  —  who  alone  could  say,  "  I  am 


XXX  INTRODUCTION. 

the  Way,  the  Truth,  the  Life" — should  be  a  Way  ending 
in  the  tomb,  a  Truth  lacking  the  revelation  of  Immortality, 
a  Life  swallowed  up  in  Death,  The  Christian  faith  would 
thus  fall  short  not  only  of  natural  intimations  but  of  Pagan- 
ism, which,  as  an  interpretation  of  Nature's  symbolism,  in- 
volved the  behef  in  a  risen  Lord  of  Life,  with  whom  in 
death  his  followers  were  identified  in  the  hope  that  they 
should  partake  of  his  resurrection.  The  truth  of  the  Res- 
urrection and  the  truth  of  a  Messiah  must  stand  or  fall 
together. 

XV 

The  Christ  of  the  Gospel  is  wholly  natural.  Not  only 
was  the  Father  revealed  in  him  but  He  was  revealed  by  a 
method  and  an  operation  which  illustrate  an 
"ence^of"  ctemal  familiarity,  such  as  is  illustrated  by  the 
Christ  to  method  and  operation  of  Nature.  It  is  because 
of  this  that  he  may  be  truly  called  the  Wonder- 
ful. He  was  human,  but  there  could  be  no  miracle  so  im- 
pressive as  the  fact  that,  being  human,  he  yet  reversed  all 
the  processes  of  a  universally  perverted  human  nature. 
He  spoke  our  speech,  but  in  his  utterances  all  the  ordinary 
currents  of  a  human  thought  gone  wrong  and  turned  awry 
were  reversed,  so  that  his  sayings  contradicted  every 
maxim  of  human  experience,  even  as  does  Nature,  when 
we  comprehend  her  divine  meanings.  He  spoke  with 
divine  authority  —  the  kind  of  authority  which  is  impressed 
upon  us  by  every  manifestation  of  Nature.  He  does  noth- 
ing and  says  nothing  which  men  usually  expect,  or  as  they 
expect,  good  men  to  do  or  say.  His  doings  and  sayings, 
both  as  to  matter  and  manner,  beget  the  expectation  which 
they  meet.  The  vital  reality  of  the  Gospel  is  just  here  — 
in  that  an  utterance  of  the  Lord,  heard  for  the  first  time, 


THE    KINGDOM   OF    THE    REAL.  xxxi 

is  to  the  human  consciousness  as  much  a  surprise  as  is  the 
first  seen  blossoming  of  a  flower ;  and  the  response  in  our 
sensibihty  seems  to  have  its  ground  in  the  utterance  (as 
our  response  to  the  unfolding  flower  seems  to  have  its 
ground  in  that  which  awakens  it)  and  to  be  an  equal  sur- 
prise. There  is  indeed  in  us  that  which  witnesseth  to  the 
everlasting  familiarity,  and  thus  a  reconcilement.  We  are 
borne  upon  this  vital  Gospel  current,  which  never  lacks 
the  surprises  nor  loses  the  familiarity  of  nature,  from  the 
manger  in  Bethlehem  to  the  final  parting  from  the  disci- 
ples on  Olivet.  The  mighty  works  of  healing  and  the 
Resurrection  seem  to  belong  to  this  movement  as  naturally 
as  the  Parables  or  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 


XVI 

The  kingdom  of  heaven  as  unfolded  by  our  Lord  is  a 
Kingdom  of  the  Real,  and  as  it  reflects  the  divine  traits 
shown  in  Nature,  it  must  of  necessity  contradict 
human  conceptions   based   upon    experience —   Kingdom 
upon  a  system  out  of  harmony  with  Nature  and      "^''^ 
the  Father.     The  moment  we  depart  from  the 
living  reality,  we  construct  for  ourselves  a  false  world. 
The  Gospel  holds  us  close  to  this  reality,  and  at  the  same 
time   guards   against    material   limitations,    against   dead 
realism.     There  is  no  distinction  between  the  vitally  Real 
and  the  Ideal  or  Spiritual. 

It  is  a  part  of  human  perversion  that  we  lay  stress  upon 
what  we  call  absolute  truth.  The  Gospel  knows  nothing 
of  such  truth.  It  shows  us  no  abstract  divinity.  It  devel- 
ops no  system  of  ethics ;  love  knows  no  ethical  obligation. 
It  simply  offers  us  the  divine  life,  and  we  are  invited  to 
submit  our  wills  to  the  mastery  of  this  life.  No  plan  of 
salvation  is  presented ;  if  we  accept  the  life,  salvation  and 


xxxii  INTRODUCTION, 

the  knowledge  of  divine  truth  will  follow  as  a  matter 
of  course.  No  rules  for  life  are  given  —  it  is  a  chartless 
kingdom.  The  life  itself  is  illustrated  in  the  life  of  our 
Lord,  and  its  truth  unfolded  in  divine   Parables. 

The  Gospel  reverses  all  human  judgments  and  abrogates 
all  outward  judgment.  All  judgment  is  real  —  of  the  Life. 
The  kingdom  is  not  the  field  of  criticism.  The  reahty  of 
every  Gospel  situation  is  its  distinctive  feature.  "  Is  it  law- 
ful to  pay  tribute  ?"..."  Show  me  the  penny." 
There  is  nothing  in  Moliere  or  Shakespeare  so  impressive 
as  that  scene,  especially  characteristic  of  the  divine  humor, 
when  the  sinful  woman  is  brought  before  our  Lord.  It  is 
a  real  situation  —  the  reality  expressing  itself,  and  rein- 
forced by  the  profound  silence. 

Our  Lord  chose  for  his  disciples  men  without  mental 
training,  unsophisticated  fishermen,  who  were  in  daily 
contact  with  natural  realities.  The  truths  of  the  king- 
dom are  most  readily  received  by  babes.  They  are  the 
truths  of  a  first  and  not  of  a  second  nature  —  that  is,  not 
of  a  worldly  second  nature,  which  is  the  result  of  training. 

XVII 

The  position  of  the  Christian  theologian  is  too  apt  to 

be  that  of  a  belief  in  Christ  so  independent  of  Nature  and 

dissociated  from  her  that  he  must  translate  the 

,  '^.''^ .   ,  truths  of  the  Gospel  into  a  supposititious  realm 

Theological  ^  ... 

Revolt  of  the  Supernatural,  and,  identifymg  this  realm 
NauJir  "^^i*  the  spiritual  world,  must  deny  to  Nature 
any  spnitual  significance.  He  thereby  takes 
common  ground  with  the  sceptic  against  the  Gospel, 
which  declares  the  manifestation  of  the  Eternal  Word  in 
Nature,  and  which  nowhere  supposes  any  spiritual  king- 
dom divorced   from  the    natural.     The  sceptic    will   not 


THE    THEOLOGICAL    REACTION.  xxxiii 

have  Christianity  in  his  Nature,  and  the  theologian  will 
not  admit  Nature  into  his  Christianity.  What  a  limita- 
tion, on  the  one  side,  of  Nature,  and,  on  the  other,  what  a 
devitalisadon  of  Christianity!  Both  Nature  and  Chris- 
tianity are  thus  reduced  to  mechanical  systems,  excluding 
and  antagonising  each  other;  so  that  sceptical  science  is 
distinguished  by  its  contempt  of  Christianity  and  theology 
by  its  contempt  of  Nature. 

The  ultimate  goal  of  this  flight  from  Nature  is  the  Nir- 
vana of  Buddhism. 

Now,  it  is  through  the  Resurrection  of  our  Lord  that 
the  eternal  life  of  the  Gospel  is  brought  into  clear  light  as 
once  and  for  all  a  reconcilement  to  the  natural  type,  and 
the  dme  is  come  for  us  to  revert  from  the  superimposed 
nodonal  structure  of  theology  to  the  Gospel  Reality. 

The  Resurrection  instead  of  opening  closes  the  door 
to  the  Supernatural  —  to  a  spiritual  life  upon  a  notional 
basis.  It  was  the  natural  complement  of  a  Life  complet- 
ing Nature,  and  its  significance  is  in  perfect  accord  with 
the  Gospel  declaradon  of  our  Lord's  power  over  all  flesh 
as  well  as  with  the  declaradon  of  St.  Paul  that  the  earnest 
expectation  of  the  creation  waiteth  for  the  reveaUng  of  the 
Sons  of  God. 

XVIII 

The  Kingdom  of  the  Real  includes  the  realm  of  the 
Imaginadon.     As  our  perverted  life  —  the  expression  of 
Self-Will   instead   of   the    Father's   will  —  is   to 
external  appearance  empty  and  insignificant,  a     Reahty 
masquerade ;   as  its  knowledge  is  a  reflex  of  its  imagination 
hollowness;   so    are   its   imaginings   errant   and     q^^^I\_ 
vain.     The  divine  life  is  so  insistently  immanent 
and  operative  in  even  the  unconsenting  human  heart  that 


xxxiv  INTRODUCTION. 

the  masquerade  becomes  a  sort  of  divine  comedy;  and 
the  constructions  of  the  Imagination,  answering  more 
readily,  because  of  their  very  spontaneity,  to  a  divine  im- 
pulse, are  often  lifted  above  the  discord  and  confusion, 
and  reflect  the  heavenly  harmony.  How  much  more 
readily,  when  there  is  the  full  acceptance  of  the  divine 
life,  will  the  shapings  of  the  Imagination  respond  to  the 
aspirations  of  Faith!  And  these  shapings  will  have  the 
reality  of  the  Faith  itself. 

It  is  a  reality  which  cannot  be  submitted  to  the  test  of 
logical  criticism.  Nature  herself  does  not  conform  to  logi- 
cal anticipation.  Once  having  reached  a  conception  of 
the  globular  form  of  the  earth  and  of  the  sun  as  a  centre 
of  planetary  motion,  logic  would  anticipate  the  perfect 
sphericaHty  of  the  globe  and  perfectly  circular  orbits.  It 
is  this  anticipation  that  must  conform  to  the  reality  —  not 
the  reaHty  to  the  anticiparion.  You  make  a  perfectly 
spherical  surface  for  your  lens,  and,  upon  trial,  find  your 
telescope  worthless.  The  logical  perfection  of  form  is  a 
fatal  defect.  The  error  of  the  Ptolemaic  system  of  as- 
tronomy was  based  not  upon  a  deception  of  the  eye  but 
upon  a  false  logical  inference.  And  yet  we  are  so  toler- 
ant of  this  logical  error  that  all  men  will  to  the  end  of 
time  speak  of  the  sun  as  rising  and  setting.  Are  logical 
inferences  and  anticipations  any  more  likely  to  be  infal- 
lible when  applied  to  the  realities  of  Faith  or  to  the  oper- 
ations of  a  divinely  inspired  imagination  ? 

It  is  not  necessary  to  attribute  infallibility  to  the  shap- 
ings of  an  imagination  thus  inspired,  or  indeed,  to  Faith 
Itself. 

Those  who  first  received  the  Gospel  were  not  only  igno- 
rant but  superstitious.  The  evangehsts  show  no  literary 
skill,  and  their  narratives  betray  no  effort  to  secure  absolute 
accuracy  of  statement  or  consistency  with  each  other.    We 


IMPERATIVE    ILLUSIONS.  xxxv 

are  not  surprised  that  they  should  tinge  the  record  with 
their  superstitious  feeHng,  or  even  that  they  should  some- 
times unconsciously  shape  our  Lord's  utterances  in  accord- 
ance with  some  construction  of  their  own  —  as  in  some 
passages  that  seem  to  predict  the  end  of  the  world  as  at 
hand.  But  the  divine  lines  are  so  strongly  drawn  that  no 
Christian  ever  was  or  ever  could  be  deceived  or  misled. 

A  vital  faith  may  operate  through  an  imperfecdy  devel- 
oped consciousness ;  it  may  even  have  expression  through 
superstitious  legends  and  embodiments,  through  anthropo- 
morphism, yea,  even  through  illusions.  It  does  not  there- 
by enter  into  the  field  of  judgment;  this  faith  of  the 
children  neither  judges  nor  submits  to  judgment.  Criti- 
cism is  of  another  world.  This  is,  indeed,  true  of  any  vital 
exaltation  or  passion  —  even  its  illusions  are  imperative, 
simply  because  they  are  bom  of  it. 

This  is  not  to  say  that  ignorance  and  superstition  are 
essential  to  faith.  But  if  this  faith  be  simple,  childlike, 
submissive  to  the  divine  life  and  a  full  acceptance  thereof, 
there  is  no  occasion  for  concern.  The  divine  life  will 
develop  its  own  wisdom  in  its  own  time  and  in  its  own 
vital  way. 

The  real  danger  is  in  a  false  interpretation  of  these  per- 
fectly natural  manifestations.  If  the  children  are  singing, 
we  must  give  them  the  freedom  of  their  hosannas.  What- 
ever flight  their  song  may  take  —  though  it  pierce  the 
heavens  and  rise  on  the  wings  of  apocalyptic  vision  to  the 
highest  heaven  —  it  cannot  adequately  express  the  real  ex- 
altation of  their  Lord.  They  are  expressing  their  own 
feeling  in  childlike  fashion.  But  if  we  take  the  shaping  of 
their  imagination  as  having  truth  apart  from  its  relation  to 
this  feeling,  if  we  rob  it  of  its  wings  and  bring  down  its 
body  trailing  lifelessly  upon  the  ground,  making  of  it  a 
theological  dogma,  with  logical  consequences  —  the  chil- 


xxxvi  INTRODUCTION. 

dren  themselves  will  not  recognise  it.  We  cannot  follow 
them  with  our  logic,  or  by  means  of  it  get  as  near  the 
truth  as  they.  Shall  we  then  help  their  truth  by  fixing 
it  in  a  formal  creed? 

The  reality  in  this  case  is  that  of  a  feeling,  divinely 
moved;  and  though  the  feeling  may  be  imperfectly  ex- 
pressed, it  will  be  divinely  led  to  higher  planes  of  expres- 
sion until  it  is  in  complete  accord  with  the  heavenly  song. 
The  spiritual  Hfe  is  a  growth,  and  there  is  a  constant  trans- 
mutation in  its  shapings  of  divine  truth.  To  fix  immutably 
any  of  these  shapings,  in  the  form  of  a  theological  dogma, 
is  not  only  a  violent  dislocation  but  an  arrest  of  develop- 
ment.    A  true  illusion  may  thus  become  an  illusory  truth. 

XIX 

By  the  Gospel,  then,  we  are  delivered  from  our  unnat- 
ural life  —  from  its  selfish  isolations,  its  disguises  and 
conventions,  its  artificial  joys  and  solemnities,  from  all  the 
vain  stabilities  of  worldly  masques  and  structures,  from  all 
the  maxims  of  the  wise  and  prudent,  and  from  all  pride 
and  hardness  of  heart. 

The  Realism  of  our  Christian  faith  gives  catholicity, 
binding  us  up  with  Nature,  in  a  covenant  including  every 
living  creature,  and  uniting  all  men  in  one  brotherhood. 

Confronting  the  divine  life  in  all  its  vital  realities,  with- 
out us  and  within  us,  substituting  interpretation  for  criti- 
cism, receiving  the  life  instead  of  expecting  to  attain 
thereunto  by  the  athletic  exercise  of  either  our  wills  or 
our  understandings,  we  are  inevitably  brought  to  Christ  — 
to  Nature  —  to  the  Gospel.  Taking  any  other  way  we  as 
inevitably  exclude  and  repudiate  them. 

When  we  fly  from  the  divinely  real  to  a  humanly  con- 
ceived  realm    of  shadows  —  whatever   we   may   call    it. 


REPUDIATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL.  xxxvii 

Metaphysic,  Theology,  Mysticism,  or  Supernaturalism  — 
when  we  identify  our  own  consecration  or  the  sacred- 
ness  of  things  with  sequestration  from  natural  uses  ; 
when  Christian  fellowships  are  based  upon  exclusiveness, 
divided  from  each  other  by  shibboleths,  and  from  the  gen- 
eral community  by  that  kind  of  shibboleth  which,  while 
readily  admitting  spiritual  indifferentism  and  worldly  for- 
malism and  respectabiUty,  repels  the  quick  life  of  human- 
ity —  then  we  are  shutting  out  our  Lord.  It  is  then  that 
men  calUng  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord  repudiate  his 
Gospel,  having  no  dread  quite  equal  to  that  of  the 
realisation  upon  earth  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

The  reality  of  this  kingdom  is  traced  in  lines  too  strong 
to   be  effaced  or   explained   away;    therefore   its   Hfe   is 
assumed  to  be   impracticable  on  earth,  and   is 
postponed  to  some  other  and  better  worid.         Gos%?Life 

Truly  the  children  of  this  world  are  wiser  in  Practicable? 
their  generation  than  the  children  of  light.  In 
every  successive  state  ot  their  development,  they  come 
nearer  and  nearer  to  a  simulation  of  the  kingdom  unfolded 
in  the  Gospel.  While  the  Christian  theorist  insists  that 
human  selfishness  is  ineradicable,  the  movement  of  an  un- 
regenerate  society  is  tending  to  a  point  where  altruism  will 
be  accepted  as  a  scientific  necessity.  Men  have  already 
so  far  comprehended  the  divine  teachings  of  Nature  as  to 
know  that  there  is  no  individual  health  except  through  the 
health  of  the  community.  They  find  also,  now  that  they 
undertake  vast  industrial  and  commercial  enterprises,  that, 
having  called  so  largely  upon  Nature's  vitalities,  they  are 
confronting  also  her  larger  spiritual  meanings,  unheeded 
hitherto,  and  that  their  vast  and  complex  machinery,  with 
its  accelerations  through  steam  and  electricity,  will  not 
work  without  incalculable  waste,  friction,  and  uncertainty 
as  to  its  beneficent   result    to  any  one  concerned  in  its 


xxxviii  INTRODUCTION. 

management,  except  through  a  human  fellowship  in  its 
control  as  universal  as  Nature's  own  co-operation  there- 
with. Thus  the  children  of  this  world,  keeping  close  to 
natural  uses,  stand  face  to  face  with  vitalities  whose  laws 
point  to  Christ,  and  compel  them  at  least  to  assume  that 
selfishness  is  impracticable.  Shall  not  the  Christian  ac- 
cept the  reality,  when  worldly  science  cannot  evade  the 
similitude  ? 

We  begin  to  comprehend  the  divine  humor  in  that  say- 
ing of  our  Lord  to  his  disciples :  "  Make  to  yourselves 
friends  of  the  mammon  of  unrighteousness  that  when  ye 
fail  they  may  receive  you  into  everlasting  habitations." 

XX 

There  is  no  theory  of  Perfectionism  involved  in  this 

life  of  the  Kingdom.     It  involves  no  theory  of  any  sort. 

The  term  perfection  is  not  real  but  notional.   Our 

A  Life  of    (development   is  in  the   Kingdom  of  the  Real, 

Surpnses.  ^  •  i  i_ 

which  eschews  the  perfect,  the  infinite,  the  abso- 
lute— all  of  which  are  negations.  We  do  not  set  before 
ourselves  mental  aims  and  ideals.  We  accept  the  divine 
life,  and  its  aspirations  are  of  its  own  genesis,  not  of  our 
determination.  It  is  a  life  of  surprises,  of  which  we  have 
no  mental  anticipation.  The  marvels  of  Science  are  but 
images  of  the  marvels  of  the  life  of  the  kingdom  on 
earth. 

The  faith  in  this  life  has  in  it  no  mysticism.  We  do  not 
shut  our  eyes  to  Nature  that  we  may  see  God,  any  more 
than  we  would  resolve  the  body  that  we  may  find  the  soul. 
We  do  not  extinguish  the  passions  and  appetites  which 
are  ours  by  nature.  We  accept  them  as  a  part  of  the 
divine  life,  and  they  take  their  divinely  appointed  place  in 
the  kingdom.     We  see  then  what  is  their  subordination. 


THE  FAITH   OF   THE   MASTER.  xxxix 

which  is  not  that  of  the  physical  to  the  mental  but  of  the 
physical  to  the  spiritual.  The  heavenly  does  not  abolish 
the  earthly  but  consists  therewith. 

XXI 

The  indwelling  of  the  Father  in  Christ  is  in  nothing 
more  manifest  than  in  his  faith.  It  was  faith  in  the 
supreme  domination  of  the  divine  life  —  as  a  real  life.  It 
was  a  leaven  sure  to  leaven  the  whole  lump.  Love  would 
conquer.  The  meek  would  surely  inherit  the  earth.  Such 
was  his  faith  in  the  new  life  that  he  sought  in  no  way  to 
destroy  the  old  Judaic  religion  and  to  institute  another  in 
its  place.  Though  bidding  his  disciples  to  beware  of  the 
leaven  of  the  Pharisees  and  of  the  Sadducees,  he  partici- 
pated in  the  synagogue  worship  and  even  in  the  great  an- 
nual feasts  at  Jerusalem,  and  he  expected  that  his  disciples 
would  follow  his  example  in  this  respect,  as  indeed  they 
did  until  the  destruction  of  the  Temple  itself.  He  estab- 
lished not  a  new  system  of  rehgion  but  a  new  fellowship, 
based  upon  love.  The  expansion  of  that  fellowship  was 
to  be  the  expansion  of  the  kingdom. 

There  was  a  calling  out  of  his  followers  (an  ecdcsia),  but 
there  was  also  to  be  a  going  forth  of  these,  a  mingling  with 
humanity,  the  salt  not  losing  thereby  its  heavenly  savor. 
The  field  was  the  world.  He  had,  by  an  association  with 
sinners  which  was  a  scandal  to  the  Pharisees,  taught  his 
disciples  a  like  fearless  commingling  with  them. 

But  how  are  the  followers  of  Christ  to  exist  in  the  world 
without  some  accommodation  to  its  system  ? 

Christians  are  taught  submissions  to  exactions  —  like 
that  of  the  tribute  —  though,  as  children,  they  are  at  the 
same  time  declared  free.  Our  Lord's  guidance  as  to  this 
matter  of  submission  is  clear,  the  line  being  drawn  at  the 


xl  INTRODUCTION. 

point  where  we  are  required  to  surrender  any  principle  of 
the  spiritual  life.     And  as  to  non-resistance,  the  natural 
interpretation  of  his  teaching  is  obvious  —  that 
Uncompro-  we  should  overcomc  evil  with  good,  hatred  with 
mismg.     jQyg_    'pj-jg  reinforcement  of  this  meaning,  in  bid- 
ding us  turn  the  other  cheek  to  the  smiter,  can  mislead 
those  only  who  insist  upon  a  literal  rather  than  the  natural 
interpretation.    All  such  examples  —  as  to  giving,  lending, 
etc. —  are  illustrations  of  the  operations  of  love,  a  love  for 
even  our  enemies  and  that  looks  for  no  return,  like  the 
love  of  our  heavenly  Father. 

The  supposed  difficulties  of  the  children  appear  to  be 
aggravated  in  a  complex  and  artificial  system  of  civilisa- 
tion. Their  difficulties  do  not  arise  from  the  impractica- 
bility of  the  Gospel  life,  but  from  the  hardness  of  the 
worldly  system.  It  is  a  part  of  the  burden  of  Christians 
that  they  must  seem  to  wear  the  masks  of  the  world.  In 
this  they  are  following  their  Lord,  and  what  others  call 
difficulties  and  problems,  are  to  them  sufferings  whereby 
they  are  associated  with  him  in  the  redemption  of  man- 
kind. Because  of  the  resistance  which  they  meet,  because 
of  the  sharp  points  constantly  piercing  their  hands  and 
their  side,  the  more  do  they  need  to  fall  back  upon  the 
divine  wisdom  and  to  respond  to  that  wisdom  with  child- 
like faith.  Some  hour  may  come  to  them  so  dark  that 
they  cry  out,  as  did  their  Lord  upon  the  Cross,  feeling 
themselves  abandoned  of  God.  But  they  are  being  glori- 
fied. It  is  their  love  and  their  suffering  which  is  to  soften 
and  subdue  the  world.  They  know  not  how  or  when,  but 
that  surely  the  kingdom  will  come  on  earth  as  it  is  in 
heaven.  Their  life  is  not  of  their  own  determination;  they 
are  led  in  living  ways.  Theirs  is  a  hidden  life,  and  yet 
they  are  forever  witnesses  to  the  living  truth,  beUeving  in 
the  vitality  of  communication.     You  will  not,  at  a  glance. 


HIS   JVITN ESSES.  xli 

observe  any  outward  characteristics  distinguishing  them  \ 
from  others.  They  throng  every  one  of  the  world's  busy 
thoroughfares.  You  will  find  them  among  the  rich  as  well 
as  among  the  poor,  though  their  hearts  are  not  set  upon 
wealth;  among  those  who  accept  responsibilities  in  worldly 
affairs,  who  win  though  they  court  not  pubhc  favor  and 
esteem;  among  the  conscripts  of  all  armies,  industrial  or 
miUtary,  though  their  heart  is  moved  only  by  the  divine 
ardor  that  is  in  the  strife ;  and  among  those  who  are  mis- 
guided by  the  traditions  of  men.  If  we  could  look  into 
their  hearts,  if  we  could  follow  them  to  their  homes  and 
into  all  the  ways  their  love  makes  among  men,  we  should 
be  translated  into  the  Optimists'  world  —  into  the  King- 
dom of  Faith.  For  they  are  a  great  multitude,  constitut- 
ing an  invisible  association,  reinforced  by  all  the  loving 
ones  on  earth  or  in  heaven — they  are  in  the  blest  Accord, 
living  the  divine  life,  caring  not  for  the  accumulation  of 
worldly  possessions  or  for  worldly  prizes,  but  only  for  the 
loving  familiar  association  holding  them  to  Nature,  to 
Christ,  and  to  Humanity.  The  secret  of  their  life  is  their 
childlike  faith  in  the  Real  Presence.  They  are  in  heaven, 
for  unto  them  worldliness  is  a  mask,  forever  showing  its 
hoUowness,  its  tenuity.  And  there  are  crises  when  this 
mask  is  shaken  by  some  divine  violence,  and  when  their 
witnessing  becomes  conspicuous,  and  the  invisible  asso- 
ciation is  for  a  moment  disclosed,  terrible  as  an  army  with 
banners. 


FIRST    BOOK 


FROM  THE  BEGINNING 


FROM  THE  BEGINNING 


1IFE  is  your  master,  Beloved;  and  your  understanding 
^  is  but  the  servant  thereof.     It  is  the  divine  life  — 
with  divine  laws,  a  divine  type,  a  divine  mean- 

.  Mastery 

ing  —  though  ye  call  it  yours;  and,  whatever  of  the 
your  conscious  determination,  individually  or  ^[^^"^ 
associatively,  ye  cannot  escape  its  mastery. 

It  is  as  a  garden  given  you  to  tend;  but  what  is  your 
tendance  to  its  large  unfolding,  which  ye  control  not :  all 
its  flowers  and  fruits,  its  perfumes  and  spices  and  balms, 
its  gems,  its  winds  and  its  streams,  its  skies  and  its  seas, — its 
quivering  warmth  and  tendernesses  in  the  familiar  sunlight, 
and  its  cool  and  solemn  stillness  under  the  stars !  When 
your  hands  and  feet  are  weary  and  your  eyelids  droop,  it 
foldeth  you  in  its  sleep  like  an  infant,  and  still  hath  for  your 
utter  weariness  its  complete  enfolding. 

Of  this  hfe,  which  ye  call  yours,  but  which  is  divine,  ye 
may  not  touch  the  laws,  which  have  always  their  full  oper- 
ation, yet  ye  may  mar  its  type  and  darken  for  yourselves 
its  meaning ;  but  the  field  of  your  conscious  doings  and 
undoings,  of  your  constructions  and  mis-constructions,  of 
your  antagonisms  and  dissipations,  of  your  problem-mak- 
ing and  problem-solving,  is  unto  this  life  as  an  island 
unto  the  ocean,  which  tolerateth  it,  yet  overwhelmeth  it 
with  its  currents  and  tidal  waves,  cleansing  it  betimes 
with  its  healthful  storms,  and  shaking  it  with  its  mighty 
convulsions. 


2  FROM    THE   BEGINNING. 

While  thus  Hmited  in  his  conscious  activities,  yet  man 
seems  infinite  in  capacity.  He  can  do  so  httle,  yet  can  he 
receive  all.  How  little  way  his  hand  reaches,  yet  his 
vision  takes  in  the  stars.  Answering  to  the  paradox  in 
physics,  by  which  a  column  of  water,  however  small,  bal- 
ances a  column  of  water,  however  large,  is  the  spiritual 
paradox,  by  which  the  soul,  as  receptive,  stands  over 
against  and  balances  the  universe.  It  is  a  mystery  which 
is  not  to  be  expressed  in  the  speculative  conception  either 
of  the  Pantheist,  who  makes  God  all  and  the  individual  an 
illusion,  or  of  the  Idealist,  who  makes  the  Ego  all  and  the 
universe  an  illusion.  It  is  a  simple  vital  truth  —  and,  like 
all  such  truths,  incapable  of  analysis  —  that  the  divine  life 
has  its  ultimate  type  in  the  conscious  individual  soul, 
which,  though  not  independent,  is  yet  free,  though  not 
making  for  itself  any  living  way,  is  yet  capable  of  choosing 
or  refusing, —  an  answering  type,  since  man  is  made  in  the 
image  of  God ;  and  through  this  correspondence,  which  is 
spiritual,  man  not  only  has  God  for  his  portion,  but  has 
also  the  capacity  to  comprehend  the  meanings  of  all  life, 
from  the  earthly,  which  is  at  his  hand,  to  the  heavenly, 
which  is  brought  nigh  unto  him,  even  into  his  heart. 

In  our  spiritual  as  in  our  bodily  existence  all  vital  func- 
tions are  of  divine  ordinance  and  continuance.  We  may 
consciously  co-operate  with  these,  or  we  may  disguise  and 
pervert  them ;  but,  as  by  taking  thought  one  cannot  add 
to  his  stature,  which  he  buildeth  not,  so  can  he  by  no  con- 
scious effort  contribute  directly  to  his  spiritual  growth — 
the  increase  must  be  from  God.  Indeed,  in  this  view,  all 
life  is  spiritual,  and  it  is  only  because  of  our  disguises,  mis- 
conceptions, and  ignorances  of  the  meanings  in  what 
we  call  the  material  world  that  we  distinguish  between 
matter  and  spirit. 

Life    is    your   master,  Beloved;   and  yielding   to    this 


"  IVHO    TOLD    YOU    THAT    YE    IVERE    NAKED?"  3 

mastery,  with  open  heart  leaning  thereunto,  ye  shall  be 
filled  with  life  and  shall  be  satisfied  —  ye  shall  be  folded  in 
the  bosom  of  Everlasting  Love. 

For  there  is  no  life  that  is  not  of  Love — which,  in  the 
visible  universe,  is  the  flame  of  suns,  begetting  life  in  all 
worlds,  and,  in  the  invisible,  is  the  flame  of  the  Spirit. 

But,  if  ye  shut  your  hearts  against  this  Hfe,  this  love, 
still  will  it  follow  you,  and  that  which,  being  received, 
would  bless  you,  shall  seem  like  a  pursuing  avenger,  before 
which  ye  are  flying  into  outer  desolation.  For  your  under- 
standing, which  ye,  by  strange  inversion,  have  made  the 
master  of  your  straightened  life,  shall  be  as  a  prism 
refracting  all  light,  so  that  ye  shall  call  those  things  evil 
which  are  but  the  shadows  of  the  one  great  sin  which  ye 
confess  not,  and  ye  shall  call  those  things  good  which  are 
but  the  false  images  of  the  one  Good  ye  have  forgotten  — 
the  Presence  from  which  ye  hide  yourselves. 

II 

Yet,  Beloved,  ye  shall  hear  in  your  Garden,  however 
far  from  Eden,  in  the  cool  of  the  day,  the  voice  of  the 
Lord  God,  asking  "  who  told  you  that  ye  were 
naked?"  striving  with  you  against  that  other    ^voi^r" 
voice  which  hath  put  you  to  shame  and   con- 
fusion, or  hath  filled  you  with  empty   pride,  unto  worse 
confusion. 

Lo,  these  two  Voices  have  striven  with  man  from  the 
beginning,  the  voice  of  the  Lord  God  saying : 

"  I  am  the  Father  of  spirits.  I  have  breathed  into  thy 
nostrils,  and  thy  life  is  of  my  Ufe — thy  light  of  my  light. 
Whosoever  hath  faith  in  me,  my  life  and  my  light  shall 
be  sufficient  unto  him.  Behold,  thou  wast  a  child,  wrapped 
in  my   love  as  in  a    deep,  untroubled  sleep,  naked,  yet 


4  FROM    THE   BEGINNING. 

not  ashamed.  And  I  gave  unto  thee  all  things  in  the 
Garden  wherein  I  walked  with  thee.  But  thou  hast 
sought  a  way  for  thyself,  to  walk  by  thine  own  strength, 
following  the  subtleties  of  thine  understanding,  which, 
separated  from  the  heavenly  light,  creepeth  forever  upon 
the  earth.  Thine  eyes  have  been  opened,  and  thou  seest 
only  by  this  outward  Hght,  remembering  only  that  thou 
art  dust  and  that  unto  dust  must  thou  return ;  of  all  thy 
precious  heritage  possessing  only  its  earthly,  perishable 
portion,  in  weariness  of  flesh  and  weariness  of  soul. 
Turn  again  unto  me  that  ye  may  have  eternal  life !  " 

But  that  other  Voice  repeateth  still : 

"  Thou  art  naked  —  gather  thee  fig  leaves.  The  venge- 
ance of  God  is  upon  thee,  and  a  flaming  sword  standeth 
between  thee  and  thy  lost  Eden,  guarding  the  fruit  of  the 
tree  of  Life.  Hide  thy  face  from  the  wrath  of  God. 
Henceforth  thy  hope  is  in  thyself  and  in  thine  own  de- 
vices. By  thine  own  strength  shalt  thou  conquer  the 
earth,  and  by  thine  own  wisdom  circumvent  a  jealous 
God,  wresting  fire  from  His  very  heaven,  and  shalt  by 
seeking  find  the  secret  of  all  knowledge  and  power. 
Rejoice  that  thine  eyes  have  been  opened  and  that  thou 
art  now  as  the  gods,  knowing  good  and  evil." 


Ill 

And  all  merely  human  philosophy  has  been  an  echo  of 

this  latter  Voice, —  only  that  shame  has  given  place  to  pride, 

and  the  name  of  God  —  even  the  mention  of 

The  Pride    His  wrath  —  has  no  longer  a  place  in  its  oracles. 

inte°iiect.    This  philosophy,  beginning  and  ending  in  the 

phenomena   of  man's   individual  consciousness 

and  volition,  has,  following  the  voice  which  first  disclosed 

his  nakedness,  made  for  him  also  an  impenetrable  solitude. 


THE   PRIDE   OF   INTELLECT.  5 

This  is  the  ultimate  subtlety  of  that  false  knowledge 
which  has  no  life  in  it  —  that,  as  an  individual,  thou  art 
so  sequestered  that  the  distance  of  the  farthest  star  is 
no  measure  of  thine  absolute  separateness  from  all  other 
existence.  And  upon  this  solitude  is  built  up  for  thee  a 
tower  of  pride. 

For,  in  this  analysis,  thou  art  the  centre  of  the  universe, 
and  nothing  can  reach  thee  save  in  the  disguise  of  thine 
own  sensibility:  there  is  no  sound  but  in  thine  ear,  no 
light  but  in  thine  eye — beyond  all  is  darkness  and  silence. 
Thou  art  the  Agrippa's  mirror  in  which  all  things  appear, 
and  the  world  is  nothing  save  as  the  embodiment  of  thy 
thought.  All  mystery  is  centred  in  thee,  and  to  thee,  as 
to  Oidipus,  the  Sphinx  can  propound  no  riddle  but  that 
thou  canst  answer  by  naming  thyself  Thou  art  the 
measure  of  all  things ;  and  thou  measurest  all,  from  the 
dust  at  thy  feet  unto  the  stars  in  the  heavens. 


IV 

But  thou  that  seemest  to  be  thus  exalted,  how  art  thou 
in  reahty  abased  and  limited  ! 

Thy  life  is  made  a  series  of  illusions  haunting  the  desert 
of  thy  solitude ;  yet  art  thou  denied  the  illusions  of  hope. 
This  philosophy  translates  all  realities  into  no- 
tions ;  knowing  only  outward  obligation ;  making  ^'™'the"* 
of  thy  freedom  a  choice  between  paths  that  all     Under- 
alike   end  in   the  grave ;    nailing   thee   to  this    ^  ^"  '"^' 
planet,  roofing  thee  in  from  heaven,  and  yet  holding  thee 
fast  to  the  worm  and  the  fire  of  thy  torment ;  glibly  naming 
all  things  under  the  sun,  yet  unable  to  utter  the  name  of 
God,  of  the  Soul,  or  of  an  Endless  Life. 

For   this  mental  analysis  touches  only  the  finite  and 
measurable.     The  meanings  of  Nature  escape  its  calcula- 


6  FROM    THE    BEGINNING. 

tion  of  proportions,  velocities,  and  distances.  In  the  pres- 
ence of  Life  the  Understanding  is  baffled.  Here  indeed  a 
cup  is  held  unto  her  lips  like  that  which  was  given  unto 
Thor  in  Jotunheim  to  drink  from,  but  which  he  could  not 
exhaust,  because  of  its  connection  with  the  inexhaustible 
sea :  nay  not  one  drop  thereof  can  she  drink,  since  neither 
the  motive  nor  the  meaning  of  life  is  within  her  grasp. 
Here  she  hath  neither  mastery  nor  interpretation,  but  must 
take  the  place  of  a  servant,  blind  and  dumb,  save  as  in- 
formed and  inspired  by  a  light  and  power,  which,  within 
her  own  Hmitations,  she  comprehendeth  not. 

V 

Listen,  then,  Beloved,  and  open  your  hearts  to  the 
Spirit  which  striveth  with  you.     There  are  no  devious  ways 
by  which,  through  the  efforts  of  your  will  or  the 
The       questionings  of  your  understanding,  ye  can  find 
Way'      God.     Here  there  is  no  indirection.     There  are 
no  barriers  to  be  scaled.     There  is  no  problem 
to  be  solved,  concerning  either  your  guilt  or  the  divine  jus- 
tice.    It  is  that  other  Voice  which  tempts  you  to  some 
sacrifice,  some  penance,  some  pilgrimage ;  which  binds  you 
to  your  burden,  or  goads  you  on  to  an  endless  search, 
which  is  endless  flight  from  Him.     It  is  this  flight  which  is 
your  error  —  the  sin  of  which  the  Spirit  convinces  you,  if 
ye  turn  unto  Him,  but  accuses  you  not,  since  it  is  the  Spirit 
of  Love.     So  closely  He  follows  that  but  to  turn  is  to 
return  unto  Him,  the  Comforter.     It  is  only  that  ye  should 
be  still,  and  ye  shall  hear  His  voice.     It  is  only  that  ye 
should  drop  your  burden,  and  ye  shall  find  rest.     It  is 
only  that  ye  should  forget  yourselves,  even  your  guilt,  and 
He  shall  visit  you  —  that  ye  should  lose  your  life,  and  ye 
shall  find  it.     The  readiness  is  all. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF   TRUTH.  7 

To  return  is  to  repent.  It  is  only  when  the  prodigal 
son  looks  into  the  loving  face  of  the  father,  who,  even 
while  he  is  yet  afar  off,  hath  come  to  meet  him,  only  when 
he  feels  the  embracing  arms  about  his  neck  and  the  kiss  of 
greeting  upon  his  cheek,  that  he  cries  out  of  his  sin  and 
unworthiness.  He  has  resolved  to  do  this;  but  it  is 
only  the  Spirit  of  Love  which  convinces  of  sin,  and 
this  He  does  in  the  very  moment  of  absolution.  For  it 
is  love  not  judgment  which  answers  you  —  nay,  rather, 
which  has  besought  you  long  and  which  ye  at  last  have 
answered. 

VI 

The  Spirit  of  Love  is  also  the  Spirit  of  Truth.     For,  as 
light  is  from  flame  in  the  visible  world,  so  in  the  invisible, 
is  truth  from  the  flame  of  the  Spirit.     And  thus 
shall  your  eye  be  single  and  your  whole  body  ifUf^^'e 
full   of  light,   because   ye   see   no  longer   with 
divided    and    partial    vision,    which   discloses   only   con- 
fusions  and   inversions   and    fractions    of  truth,    but   by 
that  light  which  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the 
world.     The  earthly  vision  is  informed  by  the  heavenly, 
and,  your  eyes  being  truly  opened,  ye  have  knowledge  not 
of  good  and  evil,  but  only  of  good. 

VII 

The  soul  of  man  is  ever  haunted  by  intimations  of  an 
ideal  life,  which  once  inhabited  Eden  or  shall  sometime 
inhabit  Heaven.     It  is  true  that  the  conception 
of  this  ideal  life  is  in  some  respects  fastidiously  '^Estate'^^' 
eclectic,  preferring  the  arbitrary  constructions  of 
the   human    imagination    to    the    divine    ordinances    of 
Nature.     But,  by  all  who  beheve  in    a   divine  hfe,  it   is 


8  FROM  THE  BEGINNING. 

conceded  that  man  in  his  first  estate  must  have  been  in 
complete  harmony  therewith. 

We  can  form  no  conception  of  the  vitaUty  born  of  this 
harmony,  either  on  its  active  side  as  love,  or  on  its  passive 
as  knowledge.  Man  was  the  child  of  God,  heir  at  once  of 
heaven  and  earth ;  but  his  regard  was  always  heavenward, 
and  all  his  earthly  life  was  caught  up  into  this  divine  vision. 
Imagination  Uke  a  vital  flame  illuminated  all  realms,  in  her 
spontaneous  flight  easily  overleaping  the  barriers  of  sense, 
wedding  the  visible  to  the  invisible ;  and,  following  as  a 
reflex  of  this  illumination,  there  was  flashed  upon  the  mind 
the  knowledge  not  merely  of  laws  but  of  inward  meanings 
—  a  knowledge  which  is  direct  interpretation,  having  the 
character  of  divination. 

We  associate  with  such  a  Hfe  perfect  freedom  from 
solicitude,  and  so  absolute  spontaneity  of  all  movement 
that  the  element  of  consciousness  —  even  the  consciousness 
of  liberty  —  is  scarcely  apparent.  We  behold  man,  at  the 
same  time  that  he  is  immediately  and  fully  recipient  of  the 
divine  life,  also  most  closely  linked  with  Nature,  his  activi- 
ties having  that  spontaneous,  unerring  character  which  we 
associate  with  all  natural  operations  and  with  what  we  call 
the  instinctive  processes  of  animal  life.  We  behold  him 
the  leader  of  all  terrestrial  hfe,  and  also,  through  the  cor- 
respondences of  a  marvellous  divination,  in  touch  with  the 
life  of  all  worlds. 

Whether  this  be  man's  first  estate  in  a  historical  or  only 
in  a  logical  order  —  whether  the  centre  of  harmony  be 
fixed  in  the  remote  past  or  in  the  remote  future,  it  is  cer- 
tain that  there  has  been  an  immense  wandering. 


HUMAN   DEGENERATION. 


VIII 

This  wandering  of  man  is  the  great  world  Epos.     Its 
origin  is  known  only  to  Him  who  alone  seeth  its  end. 
There  is  —  and  in  the  very  nature  of  things  there 
can  be  —  no  record  of  a  Golden  Age.     It  is  only   The  Epos 

of  Human 

in  the  face  of  death  —  of  failure  —  that  men  Error, 
build  monuments.  Outside  of  Sacred  Writings, 
our  first  glimpse  of  man  upon  the  earth  is  that  of  a  wan- 
derer, eating  the  bread  of  his  own  or  others'  toil,  enslaving 
others  or  himself  enslaved,  a  tyrant  or  the  victim  of  ty- 
rants. History  is  the  record  of  human  strife.  Civilisation 
itself  is  gladiatorial,  a  complex  system  of  selfish  competi- 
tions. It  is  assumed  that  life  is  of  necessity  a  ceaseless 
struggle  of  man  against  Nature  —  of  man  against  man. 
Peace  is  only  an  armistice  —  a  balance  of  menacing  pow- 
ers ;  and  in  its  semblance  of  security  men  laboriously  cul- 
tivate science  and  the  arts,  and  elaborate  their  systems  of 
morals  and  jurisprudence,  or  else  relax  all  effort  in  the  en- 
joyment of  sensual  pleasures  and  luxurious  ease.  The  in- 
heritance of  the  earth,  if  we  regard  the  testimony  of  history, 
is  not  through  love  but  through  conquest.  The  Hnks 
with  nature  have  been  broken;  and  there  are  but  frag- 
ments and  hints  of  a  higher  life  —  the  faint  reminiscences 
of  a  state  of  simple  innocence.  Vitality  is  no  longer  the 
pure  white  flame  of  man's  impassioned  nature  aspiring 
heavenward;  it  glows  into  ardors  that  smoulder.  Con- 
sciousness is  dominant  in  the  regulation  of  life,  with  its 
false  shame,  false  pride,  meaningless  conventions,  confusing 
disguises.  The  grace  of  free  spontaneous  activity  is  dis- 
placed by  what  we  call  taste,  manner,  tone  —  the  results 
of  training.  Theories  that  begin  nowhere  and  end  no- 
where, vain  speculations,  futile  analyses,  have  taken  the 


10  FROM    THE   BEGINNING. 

place  of  a   divinely   informed   wisdom.     Imagination   is 
shorn  of  her  wings,  and  there  is  no  longer  true  divination. 

But  this  Epos  is  not  fully  expressed  in  the  annals  of 
history,  nor  in  the  monuments  of  art  which  time  has  pre- 
served, nor  yet  in  the  religious  memorials  of  past  genera- 
tions—  the  menhirs  and  dolmens,  the  temples,  images 
and  tombs :  these  are  the  records  of  hardness,  frailty  and 
decay.  The  best  of  any  life  escapes  record.  Its  fragrance 
and  beauty  and  song,  its  joy  and  its  pathos,  are  too 
evanescent  for  memorial.  Here  and  there,  in  the  Vedic 
chants  or  the  Homeric  poems  —  transmitted  from  genera- 
tion to  generation  through  the  living  voice,  and  at  last  by 
some  happy  chance  committed  to  writing  —  we  catch 
faint  echoes  of  the  vanished  youth  of  the  world.  Other 
hymns  beside  the  Vedic  were  chanted  at  sunrise,  and  in 
other  lands,  but  they  have  not  lingered  for  our  ears.  We 
have  a  ghmpse  of  the  heathen  priest  Melchisedec,  who  was 
nevertheless  the  priest  of  the  Most  High  God,  in  his  casual 
meeting  with  Abraham,  with  his  offerings  of  bread  and 
wine.  But  who  were  his  people,  and  what  hymns  may 
they  have  sung?  Where  are  the  unsung  Helens  and 
Andromaches,  Antigones  and  Electras,  the  uncrowned 
women  of  the  olden  time  ?  They  have  vanished,  as  have 
also  the  chivalry  and  tenderness  they  inspired.  And  of 
the  endless  procession  of  children  —  of  babes  and  suck- 
lings out  of  whose  mouths  is  perfected  praise  —  we  have 
but  the  glimpse  of  that  throng  which  in  the  temple  shouted 
hosannas  to  the  Son  of  David. 

The  divine  life  is  not  excluded  from  this  Epos  —  it  is 
indeed  the  largest  power  therein.  The  children,  though 
wandering,  escape  not  the  close-following,  ever-besetting 
love  of  the  Father.  Degeneration  there  has  been,  and 
mortal  failure;  but  ever  from  the  beginning  this  infinite 
love  has  bent  down  to  man's  decaying  life  and  with  its  re- 


THE    FOLLOIVING    LOI^E.  ii 

viving  breath  has  awakened  it  into  whatever  of  freshness, 
beauty  and  glory  it  has  shown.  Even  as  His  flowers  have 
ever  the  freshness  which  they  had  in  Eden,  and  His  sun 
and  His  rain  fail  not,  so  His  love  never  wearies,  but  it 
knocks  at  every  door — in  some  ways  beseeching,  in  some 
compelling,  in  some  even  submitting,  in  all  waiting  with 
the  untiring  patience  of  the  Bridegroom. 

IX 

Of  the  divine  life  itself  there  are  no  differing  dispensa- 
tions. God's  attitude  toward  fallen  man  is  the  same  as 
toward  man  in  his  first  estate  —  the  same  essen- 
tially, though  we  express  it  differently,  because  Grace  is 
of  the  change  in  us.  Grace  was  from  the  be-  Beginning, 
ginning,  even  in  Eden,  but,  as  related  to  fallen 
man,  we  call  it  saving  grace.  The  divine  love  remains  in 
all  its  fulness ;  but,  as  a  following  love,  denied,  betrayed, 
and  crucified,  it  differs,  for  us,  from  a  love  fully  received. 
There  was  always  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  its  laws  — 
the  laws  of  the  spiritual  life  —  remain  forever  the  same. 
The  life  of"'unfallen  man  was  renewed  every  instant  by  the 
Spirit  dwelling  within  him ;  but  the  new  birth  by  which 
degenerate  man  is  quickened  we  call  regeneration.  The 
Spirit  which  dwelt  in  Adam  because  he  was  in  haiTnony 
therewith  strives  with  every  man  to  find  in  his  heart  a 
dwelling-place.  Only  through  this  Spirit,  and  through  the 
unfolding  of  spiritual  meanings  in  the  visible  world,  did 
God  reveal  himself  unto  Adam.  Man  in  his  first  estate 
had  no  light  save  that  which  lighteth  every  man  that  com- 
eth  into  the  world  —  only  he  comprehended  the  light. 

Moreover,  the  divine  attitude  toward  man  was  the  same 
before  the  coming  of  our  Lord  as  afterward.  The  dispen- 
sation which  we  call  Christian,  while  it  is  the  special,  is  not 


12  FROM    THE    BEGINNING. 

the  only  dispensation  of  grace.    In  its  largest  meaning  the 
Christian  dispensation  is  not  limited  to  any  time. 

The  Word  was  from  the  beginning  the  Son,  since 
Sonship  is  not  of  the  flesh  but  of  the  spirit,  and,  even  as 
the  Messiah,  is  eternal,  since  from  the  first  he  has  been 
Sent.  There  never  has  been  any  visible  appearing  of  God 
but  through  the  Son.  "  No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any 
time ;  the  only-begotten  Son  which  is  in  the  bosom  of  the 
Father,  he  hath  declared  Him."  Always  it  has  been  true 
that  "  he  who  hath  the  Son  hath  Ufe." 


Always,  then,  Beloved,  it  is  the  Word  which  leads  all 

men  unto  the  Father  —  not  the  spoken  word  alone,  but  the 

Word  which  was  from  the  beginning.     But  it  is 

Spirit      not  until  we  are  quickened  by  the  Spirit  of  God, 

and  the     ^yhich  cver  strives  with  man,  that  we  know  either 
Word.  ,    ,  ,        ... 

that  whereunto  we  are  led  or  the  divme  sweet- 
ness and  strength  of  the  leading.  Thus  the  leading  Word 
and  the  quickening  Spirit  are  forever  revealing  each  other, 
so  that,  if  we  follow  the  leading,  the  quickening  virtue 
enters  our  hearts  ;  and  the  Spirit  which  quickens  forthwith 
impels  us  into  the  living  ways  of  the  Word  —  showing  us 
the  Christ. 

XI 

But  is  not  God  sufficient  unto  Himself  that  we  must 
see  the  Christ  ? 

Verily  He  is  sufficient  unto  Himself,  so  that 

^DeHght"'  He  ^^^^  ^o^  ^^^e  created  anything.     But  He 

in        dehghteth   in  manifesting    Himself,   and    every 

manifestation   of  Him  from  the  first  creation  is 

a   showing  of  Christ,  the  Eternal  Word. 


THE   EVERLASTING    BRIDEGROOM.  13 

And  the  delight  which  God  had  in  creation  —  for,  when 
He  saw  everything  which  He  had  made,  He  saw  that  it 
was  good,  and  there  was  in  Heaven  a  Sabbath  festival  — 
this  delight  hath  been  repeated  with  each  new  manifesta- 
tion; it  is  His  pleasure  in  His  Son:  so  that  from  the 
beginning  our  Lord  hath  been  the  Master  of  every  Feast  — 
the  everlasting  Bridegroom.  And  especially  exultant,  so 
that  heaven  overflowed  therewith,  was  the  divine  rejoicing 
over  the  Son  of  God  become  the  Son  of  man,  Emanuel, 
because  herein  was  expressed  the  ultimate  embodiment  of 
the  divine  love.  Him  therefore  especially  the  Spirit 
glorifieth. 

Nevertheless,  all  the  years  of  the  world  have  been  the 
years  of  our  Lord. 

We  may  not  limit  the  divine  love  to  any  chosen  race,  or 
to  any  period  of  human  history.  Every  soul  that  has  hved 
has  been  surrounded  by  the  divine  light,  has  been  within 
reach  of  the  heavenly  harmony — if  there  were  but  the  eye 
to  see,  the  ear  to  hear.  Upon  the  sensibility  from  without, 
upon  the  soul  from  within  was  there  always  the  pressure  of 
God's  love,  encompassing,  uplifting. 

"  Ye  will  not  come  unto  me  that  ye  might  have  life,"  is 
the  plaint  of  the  divine  Spirit  from  the  beginning.  It  is 
not  man  who  hath  wrestled  with  God  for  a  blessing,  but 
God  who  hath  wrestled  with  man  to  bless  him. 


XII 

Not  only  is  there  the  extension  of  the  kingdom  of 
grace,  so  as  to  include  all  humanity  from  the  beginning, 
but  there  has  been  in  every  age  a  human  response  to 
the  divine  love. 

Man's  love  toward  God  has  ever  been  of  his  choice. 
His  faith  is  the  willing  acceptance  of  the  divine  life,  the 


14  FROM    THE   BEGINNING. 

free  surrend&r  of  his  will  to  the  divine  will.    This  freedom 

of  faith  is  so  precious  unto  God  that  by  no  revelation  or 

H  ..v,,       manifestation  of  Himself  does  He  ever  violate  it. 

Jtiuman 

Love  "  I  -will  arise  and  go  unto  my  Father "  is  in 

by°ihe"  ^11  ages  the  language  of  faith.  The  repentant 
Divine.  gQj^  thinks  not  of  righteousness  —  of  anything 
which  he  can  do  to  merit  approbation  or  to  avert 
judgment.  The  Father's  love  is  so  close  upon  him  that 
it  begets  only  love.  There  is  no  arbitrary  compulsion  of 
his  returning  steps;  but  his  very  willingness,  his  hunger 
for  the  bread  of  life  in  place  of  the  husks  upon  which  he 
has  been  feeding,  are  a  response  to  the  inviting  Word 
and  the  quickening  Spirit ;  even  as  the  flowers  turn  unto 
the  sun  because  its  rays  have  pierced  their  hearts.  There 
is  a  willingness  deeper  than  any  conscious  consent  —  the 
wiUingness  of  the  spirit,  and,  when  this  has  been  won, 
all  outward  rebellion  is  a  "  kicking  against  the  pricks." 
In  its  very  depths,  below  all  conscious  regulation,  man's 
spiritual  nature  is  at  once  the  highest  manifestation  of  the 
Eternal  Word  and  the  peculiar  field  of  the  operation  of  the 
quickening  Spirit.  Herein  is  the  vital  current  uniting  us 
with  the  life  of  all  life.  In  this  view,  man  is  instinct  with 
God  even  as  Nature  is,  as  directly  and  as  intimately,  all 
the  deeper  currents  of  his  hfe  being  as  divinely  impelled  as 
are  the  movements  of  the  tides  or  the  courses  of  the  stars. 
Only  the  spirit  comprehendeth  the  things  of  the  spirit. 
The  full  significance  of  any  divine  revelation  is  only  of 
spiritual  discernment.  The  Word,  without  us  and  within 
us,  is  a  leading  toward  such  revelation,  a  preparation 
therefor,  a  lisping  of  its  vocabulary.  The  soul  has  thereby 
been  led  to  name  the  Unknown ;  it  has  been  made  to  feel 
the  bond  holding  it  to  the  Unseen ;  it  has  been  borne  upon 
a  current  springing  from  some  hidden  source,  so  that  it  has 
the  feeling  of  a  destiny  not  to  be  expressed  in  terms  of  the 


THE   RELIGIOUS    INSTINCT.  \y 

understanding  or  even  of  conscience  —  a  something  which 
it  cannot  consciously  apprehend,  but  which  it  feels  as  com- 
prehending the  totality  of  Nature  and  Humanity.  But 
Avhen  the  willingness  of  man's  spirit  answers  to  the  opera- 
tion of  the  divine  spirit,  there  is  the  spiritual  illumination  — 
the  new  birth.  Then  the  Spirit  and  the  Word  are  united 
in  the  human  consciousness.  Then  the  leading,  hitherto 
hidden,  is  clearly  seen.  The  centre  of  all  harmony  has 
been  reached,  and  God,  Man,  and  Nature  take  their  place 
in  a  newly  discovered  kingdom,  binding  them  all  together 
—  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Then,  and  not  till  then,  "  the 
invisible  things  of  God  from  the  creation  of  the  world  are 
clearly  seen,  being  understood  by  the  things  that  are  made." 
That  which  has  veiled  God  now  reveals  Him.  Even 
the  material  partakes  of  the  spiritual,  being  seen  as  the 
garment  of  the  All-loving  One  ;  and  the  touch  of  but  even 
so  much  as  its  hem  is  heahng. 

XHI 

But,  even  in  the  unregenerate,  there  is  the  development 
of  a  spiritual  nature,  notwithstanding  its  limitation  and 
perversion.     Man  may  abandon  God,  but  God  will  not 
abandon  him;    there   is   the   throbbing   of  the 
divine    life    in    every   artery    of   his   corrupted       The 

...         ,  .  Religious 

heart;  the  name  of  God   it   is  that  is  nearest     instinct, 
the  lips  of  even  the  blasphemer. 

The  consent  of  man's  will  is  not  necessary  to  the  mas- 
tery of  this  divine  life  in  his  spiritual  nature ;  and  to  his 
unwillingness  this  mastery  seems  a  compulsion.  Whether 
with  or  against  his  will,  the  divine  purpose  will  be  fulfilled 
in  man  as  in  the  worid ;  in  the  universal  scheme  the  Eter- 
nal Word  compels  him.  He  may  give  or  withhold  his 
heart  —  love  is  of  choice.     His  attitude  of  readiness  or 


i6  FROM    THE   BEGINNING. 

unreadiness  is  within  the  scope  of  his  freedom.  The  Word 
will  be  glorified ;  he  may  freely  determine  whether  he  will 
share  that  glory  as  a  child  of  the  kingdom. 

To  the  persistence  of  this  divinely  impelled  spiritual  de- 
velopment is  due  the  universaHty  of  what  we  call  the 
religious  instinct.  We  see  a  development  which  is  the 
ground  of  faith,  but  yet  is  not  faith  and  is  even  consistent 
with  infidelity.  Without  it  there  is  no  conception  of  God 
as  the  Father ;  it  is  the  way,  the  only  direct  way  within  us 
to  the  higher  life ;  yet  it  is  not  that  life.  By  reason  thereof 
it  is  impossible  for  man  to  separate  himself  from  God,  yet 
it  does  not  of  necessity  involve  a  comprehension  of  Him 
as  the  only  Good.  Of  itself  it  has  not  hope  —  it  may  be 
determined  wholly  by  fear.  It  is  the  ground  of  all  moral- 
ity, yet  it  may  be  immoral  —  the  ground  of  the  sentiment 
of  human  brotherhood,  yet  it  may  lead  to  fratricide.  It  is 
the  way  of  Ught,  yet  it  may  grope  in  darkness  —  of  life, 
yet  it  may  generate  corruption. 

XIV 

Of  the  ancient  generations  of  men  scarcely  anything  has 

escaped  oblivion  save  their  religious  memorials.     The  re- 

^    J...       hgious  hfe  seems  to  have  been  for  every  soul  a 

Conditions       b  ■'  ^ 

affecting  the  nccessity.     Oftcrings  were  made  by  Cain  with 
^o^AndTnT' murder  in  his  heart  as  by  Abel  with  meekness. 
F^'*-  But  where  the  record  is  the  fullest  and  clear- 

est, the  evidences  of  a  decaying  faith  are  most  abundant. 
Where  the  structure  of  ancient  civilisation  is  seen  at  its 
strongest,  we  find  also  the  most  lifeless  rehgious  formahsm 
and  a  worldly  hierarchy.  In  Judea  the  prophetic  move- 
ment was  constantly  breaking  up  the  crystallisation  of  the 
national  strength  and  of  the  Levitical  system  and  its  im- 
posing ceremonial;    and  it  is  because  of  this  structural 


ANCIENT   CiyiLlSATION  AND    FAITH.  17 

weakness  that  the  Hebrew  faith  stands  to-day  alongside 
the  Christian  —  a  hving  spiritual  influence  through  all 
time,    surviving   the   Temple    and   its    ritual. 

In  those  peoples  and  in  those  periods  that  exhibit  the 
most  firmly  established  worldly  system  we  are  not  per- 
mitted the  vision  of  a  simple  faith ;  the  gladiatorial  habit 
of  life,  the  preference  of  material  good,  enter  into  and  affect 
religious  expression.  In  such  a  system  fear  is  easier  than 
love,  and  is  assiduously  cultivated  by  the  priestly  order, 
which  finds  in  it  the  readiest  means  for  the  exercise  and 
maintenance  of  its  own  power.  The  feud  which  is  only  in 
man's  bosom,  and  in  which  the  All-loving  One  could  have 
no  part,  is  yet  transferred  to  God,  who  is  conceived  as  an 
angry  deity  to  be  propitiated.  Selfishness  leads  to  further 
misconception,  and  man  expects  God  to  abet  him  even  in 
his  cruelties,  to  help  him  conquer  his  enemies,  to  con- 
serve to  him  the  fruits  of  his  injustice,  his  very  slaves. 
Pride  enters  also,  and  he  thinks  to  buy  a  blessing,  or  to 
earn  it  by  some  meritorious  action  or  penance,  instead  of 
simply  giving  his  heart.  Men  readily  conceive  God  after 
their  own  systems,  which  are  inversions  of  the  divine  or- 
der. They  make  for  themselves  codes  based  on  the  idea 
of  evil  as  injury,  and  they  affix  penalties  corresponding  to 
the  injury.  It  is  but  a  step  from  this  to  the  thought  of 
God  as  a  Rewarder  and  Punisher  —  not  in  the  sense  that 
righteousness  by  its  own  law  is  blessedness  and  unright- 
eousness misery,  but  in  an  arbitrary  sense,  dissociated  from 
and  even  contrary  to  the  operation  of  all  law. 

This  degeneration  of  faith  has  in  all  ages  the  same 
tendency  —  toward  self- righteousness,  Pharisaism,  and  an 
elaborate  religious  ceremonial ;  and  these  are  all  associated 
with  the  grandest  achievements  of  human  pride.  Along- 
side the  pyramids  are  the  ruined  temples. 

But  where  are  the  multitude,  in  all  this  show  of  strength 


i8  FROM    THE    BEGINNING. 

and  solemn  splendor  ?  Where  are  the  myriads  of  slaves, 
who,  under  the  lash  of  the  task-masters,  build  the  pyramids  ? 
Where  is  the  long  procession  of  them  whose  chains  alone 
bear  witness  to  the  triumphs  of  the  conqueror  ?  Where  are 
the  miserable  ones  who,  beating  their  breasts,  appeal  not 
unto  a  just  God  to  behold  their  righteousness,  but  only 
unto  His  grace  ?  Where  are  they  who  are  so  fortunate  as 
to  be  victims  instead  of  victors,  whom  God's  love  has 
chastened,  breaking  up  their  idols,  their  hardness  and 
pride,  and  sending  them  to  sing  their  sweet  songs  by  the 
waters  of  Babylon  ?  Where,  in  this  dim  retrospect,  is  the 
vast  throng  of  them  who  out  of  the  shadows  look  forward 
unto  the  Cross  (for,  bearing  the  weight  of  every  woe  since 
the  world  began,  it  is  not  from  them  entirely  hidden)  and 
cry,  "  Behold,  O  Lord,  we  also  suffer  and  are  Thine  "  ? 

XV 

The  most  important  of  all  the  conditions  affecting  the 
spiritual  development  of  mankind  has  been  sorrow. 

In  death,  the  common  lot  of  all,  even  the  rich  and  the 

strong  have  beheld  the  despoiler  of  all  their  vain  shows. 

Against  the  inevitable  calamities  which  shatter 

The  Office  ^^  dissolvc  the    works  of  man's  hand  —  earth- 

01  borrow. 

quake  and  tempest  and  flood  —  no  human  power 
has  availed.  These  lessons  of  Nature,  who  is  no  respecter 
of  classes  or  persons,  as  to  the  frailty  of  all  human  power  and 
possession,  have  profoundly  impressed  all  hearts.  Loss  has 
led  to  precious  gain. 

But  the  greatest  of  human  sufferings,  those  which  em- 
bitter all  Ufe,  have  been  of  human  infliction.  The  situation 
of  the  great  majority  of  mankind  in  ancient  times  —  those 
of  which  we  have  any  definite  record  —  was  one  of  abject 
wretchedness.    Arcady  existed  only  in  the  poet's  fancy.     In 


THE   OFFICE   OF  SORROIV.  19 

a  state  of  barbarism  men's  wants  were  few  and  simple,  but- 
their  passions  were  violent,  and  for  the  weak  there  was  no 
security.  Every  desirable  garden  upon  earth  was  a  bait  to 
the  rapacity  of  conquest,  the  arena  of  invasion  following- 
upon  invasion,  like  the  waves  of  a  hungry  sea.  Civilisation, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  organised  selfishness ;  and  its  peace 
was,  for  the  great  body  of  the  people,  a  level  desolation. 
Their  lot  was  one  of  humiHating  drudgery,  of  depressing, 
hopeless  poverty. 

But  it  was  especially  unto  the  poor  that  the  gospel  of  the 
Eternal  Word  was  preached.  To  such  as  these  the  voice 
of  God  comes  nearer,  because  it  is  more  willingly  and  gladly 
heard.  The  broken  heart  is  open;  there  is  no  pride  to 
close  the  way  thereunto.  An  angel  whispers  in  the  ear 
of  every  slave,  and  upon  him  who  hath  nothing  all 
heaven  waits. 

Sorrow,  too,  lies  near  true  repentance,  even  as  the  broken 
becomes  readily  the  contrite  heart ;  pride  has  no  place  in  its 
chastened  and  subdued  mood.  The  soul,  weary  of  struggle 
and  of  its  own  discontent,  receives  the  divine  voice,  and 
is  comforted.  Even  one's  ignorance  may  help  him  here, 
in  this  soft,  unresisting  attitude  making  him  more  readily 
the  recipient  of  the  divine  wisdom,  more  pliant  to  the  coun- 
sels of  the  Spirit  of  Love. 

It  is  all  wrong  in  our  human  estimate  —  the  oppression 
which  has  desolated,  the  slavery,  the  ignorance;  but 
where  these  have  brought  man  into  extremity,  there  has 
been  the  divine  opportunity.  He  w^ho  has  been  knock- 
ing long  at  the  door  of  the  heart  is  let  in  and  takes 
possession.  And  his  voice,  once  heard,  who  shall  resist  ? 
It  has  a  sweetness  beyond  the  sweetest  sounds  of  music. 
His  shining  face  is  that  of  the  heavenly  Bridegroom.  To 
the  suffering  of  the  soul  his  long-suffering  answers.  The 
garden  of  toil  and  bitterness  becomes  the  garden  of  his 


20  FROM   THE   BEGINNING. 

love,  and  the  mint,  broken  under  weary  feet,  gives  forth 
a  sweet  smell. 

Such  is  the  divine  visitation  unto  the  poor  in  spirit ;  and 
its  power  abides  in  strength,  comfort,  rest.  Sorrow  in  this 
loving  presence  is  turned  to  repentance  and  rejoicing.  All 
wounds  are  healed,  and  the  thorny  path  is  full  of  light. 

But  we  may  not  look  for  the  perfection  of  faith  from  this 
visitation.  The  heel  which  bruises  the  serpent's  head  is 
itself  bruised  thereby.  The  Vision  and  the  Voice  that  have 
saved  man  from  despair  have  been  marred  through  the 
imperfection  of  his  seeing  and  hearing.  Man's  freedom  is 
in  no  wise  disturbed  by  the  divine  appearing.  But  he  has 
been  helped.  Though  even  inspiration  and  prophecy  have 
been  disguised  by  the  human  mediation,  they  are  none  the 
less  from  God,  and  none  the  less  effective  for  their  divine 
purpose  of  comfort  and  hope. 

XVI 

When,  through  great  sorrow  or  anyotherwise,  one   is 

brought  into  a  living  way,  and  submits  to  the  mastery  of 

the  divine  life,  his  mental  questionings  cease,  and 

rop  ecy.  ^^^  gjygg  himsclf  up  to  bc  Utterly  weak  and  foolish, 
that  he  may  have  the  divine  strength  and  wisdom.  In  his 
waiting  and  his  silence,  he  beholds  the  burning  bush,  and 
himself  experiences  the  baptism  of  fire ;  he  is  caught  up 
into  the  vital  current  of  divine  love — the  flame  of  the 
Spirit ;  and  what  he  shall  say,  it  shall  not  be  of  himself, 
for  he  shall  prophesy. 

His  freedom  is  not  disturbed ;  indeed,  then  only  is  he  free 
when  he  is  caught  in  this  living  way.  We  call  a  man  free 
when  he  takes  his  hfe  in  his  own  hands  and  regulates  it 
according  to  a  system  of  his  own  construction;  but  this 
is  in  truth  his  prison-house. 


IN   LINING    IVAYS.  21 

But  what  is  it,  Beloved,  to  be  in  living  ways  ?  It  is  to 
give  up  everything  for  Hfe  —  to  reverse  all  the  lines  of 
direction  which  ye  have  followed  away  from  those  of  the 
divine  leading.  It  is  to  give  up  the  loose,  disjointed  frag- 
ments and  phantoms  of  what  ye  call  your  life — all  your 
mental  subtleties  and  vain  imaginations  —  all  the  traditions 
of  men ;  to  get  away,  if  need  be,  into  the  wilderness,  where 
one,  confronting  life  in  its  simplest  terms,  may  clearly  dis- 
cern between  that  for  which  he  hungers  and  thirsts  and 
the  heavenly  portion  offered  him,  where  he  may  boldly 
face  his  greed  and  ambition,  and  put  them  behind  him — 
though  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  be  within  his  vision 
and  grasp  —  and  then  be  ministered  unto  by  angels,  that  is, 
by  God-sent  impulses  and  vitalities.  It  is  to  live  by  every 
word  which  proceedeth  from  the  mouth  of  God.  Thus 
was  it  with  Enoch  and  Elijah,  who,  caught  in  these  living 
ways,  were  so  exalted  in  their  life  that  even  their  death  was 
represented  as  a  divine  rapture. 

There  is  in  these  ways  no  mysticism  ;  though  hidden 
from  the  wise  and  prudent,  they  are  clear  to  babes.  They 
are  not  narrow  or  austere.  They  have  not  the  solemnity  of 
the  temple,  but  rather  that  which  taketh  the  child  in  the 
broad  noonday,  or  when  a  large  place  is  opened  unto  him. 
Whosoever  toucheth  the  divine  life,  even  in  the  humblest 
of  creatures,  and  receiveth  it — it  is  unto  him  the  gate  of 
heaven.  There  is  here  no  comparison  as  between  the 
litde  and  the  great.  From  or  unto  the  least  is  from  or 
unto  all. 

Ancient  divination,  in  its  most  corrupt  form,  was  always 
an  augury  from  movements  not  under  conscious  human 
control — from  the  oppositions  and  conjunctions  of  stars, 
from  the  flight  of  birds,  from  dreams,  from  the  random 
utterances  of  children  or  of  the  insane,  from  the  wilc^ 
oracles  of  a  phrensied  priestess, — from  happenings  of  any 


22  FROM  THE   BEGINNING. 

sort.  There  is  in  this  a  suggestion,  at  least,  of  the  spiritual 
truth  that  all  life  is  inter-correspondent,  and  that  its  deeper 
meanings  are  independent  of  volition  and  consciousness. 
We  reach  the  full  truth  when,  in  the  place  of  this  consul- 
tation of  fortuitous  correspondences,  we  substitute  the 
spiritual  interpretation  of  all  meanings  through  the  divine 
life  within  us. 

The  prophet  gives  his  vision  as  he  sees  it.  Whatever 
imperfection  there  is  in  his  seeing  will  appear  in  his  com- 
munication, which,  while  it  has  the  divine  impress  upon  it, 
has  also  that  of  the  individual  personation.  The  divine 
exaltation  of  the  human  medium  is  not  of  necessity  its 
perfect  illumination.  There  are  all  degrees  of  clearness, 
from  the  vagueness  of  Orphic  vaticinations  to  the  heavenly 
might  and  pathos  of  the  poetry  of  Isaiah.  Jonah  prophe- 
sied the  destruction  of  Nineveh,  and  was  vexed  that  his 
prophecy  was  not  fulfilled ;  and  the  lesson  of  the  gourd  was 
needed  that  he  might  comprehend  the  infinite  pity  of  God 
toward  even  a  heathen  city  —  even  toward  its  "  much 
cattle." 

Outside  of  the  Vedas,  there  is  in  all  sacred  writings  noth- 
ing to  be  compared  with  the  Hebrew  prophecies.  As  already 
indicated,  it  was  the  prophetic  movement  which  preserved 
the  vitality  and  simplicity  ofthe  Hebrew  faith,  transforming 
and  spiritualising  the  Mosaic  law,  and  antagonising  the  state 
religion  of  Jerusalem.  The  synagogue  was  a  characteristic 
prophetic  institution,  representing  the  spiritual  freedom  of 
the  people.  The  prophets,  therefore,  naturally  incurred 
the  hatred  of  the  holy  city.  "  Thou  that  killest  the 
prophets,"  was  our  Lord's  reproach,  when  he  wept  over 
Jerusalem. 

We  are  too  much  inclined  to  ignore  this  antagonism, 
and  to  even  especially  glorify  the  very  features  of  Judaism 
which  the  prophets  deprecated.     In  like  manner,  and  for 


STATE  RELIGIONS  AND   THE  POPULAR  FAITH.    23 

the  same  reason — that  is,  because  of  our  higher  estimate  of 
outward  strength  and  of  mental  and  ethical  culture  than  of 
spiritual  truth — we,  in  our  consideration  of  other  ancient 
religions,  lay  more  stress  upon  state  ceremonies,  upon  the 
fastidious  eclecticism  of  culture,  upon  the  fables  of  poets 
and  the  dialectics  of  philosophers,  than  upon  the  popular 
faith. 

Thus,  when  we  consider  the  Chinese  religion,  it  is 
Confucius  and  Mencius  who  are  put  forward  as  its  repre- 
sentative exponents.  For  the  formal  expression  of  ethical 
truth  there  are  no  ancient  teachers  who  excel  them.  They 
enjoin  obedience  to  parents,  fidelity,  benevolence,  honesty, 
sincerity,  truth,  justice — softened  by  the  precept  that  men 
should  recompense  injury  with  good — and  reciprocity, 
according  to  the  golden  rule  to  do  unto  others  as  we 
would  that  they  should  do  unto  us.  Such  a  system,  rec- 
ognising no  obligations  that  are  not  ethical,  became  natu- 
rally associated  with  the  state  religion  of  China.  On  the 
other  hand  Lao-tse,  in  some  respects  the  highest  spiritual 
teacher  of  antiquity,  is  almost  entirely  excluded  from  our 
consideration. 

Our  conception  of  Hellenic  spiritual  development,  also, 
is  generally  such  as  might  have  resulted  from  a  casual  visit 
to  Athens  in  the  time  of  Pericles,  from  conversation  with 
Plato,  from  listening  to  a  trilogy  of  Sophocles  or  the 
Homeric  recitations  of  the  Rhapsodists,  or  from  a  glimpse 
of  the  splendors  of  a  Pan-Athenaic  procession.  Athens, 
the  eye  of  Hellas,  blots  out  Eleusis,  which  is  its  heart,  and 
Pallas-Athene  eclipses  Demeter. 

Really,  however,  it  is  only  in  the  popular  faith — not- 
withstanding its  perversions — that  is  shown  the  profoundest 
spiritual  life  of  any  nation.  Individual  prophets  may  have 
been  especially  inspired  as  leaders  of  the  popular  move- 
ment, but  it  will  be  found  that  they  have  somehow  grown 


24  FROM  THE   BEGINNING. 

out  of  the  movement  itself,  out  of  an  impulse  divinely 
communicated  to  the  whole;  and,  while  they  are  God's 
chosen  ministers,  they  are  chosen  because  they  are  found 
nearest  the  vital  current,  caught  in  some  living  way. 

XVII 

Such  ministers  were  they — at  once  Prophets  and  Poets 

— in  whose  hearts  were  bom  and  on  whose  lips  blossomed 

into  song  the  ancient  Vedic  hymns.     In  these 

The  Vedic  ^^.^  ^q^q  nearest  to  the  iirst  beginnings  of  Aryan 

Hymns.  o  o 

faith,  in  the  face  of  the  Sunrise.  These  hymns 
for  ages  were  not  committed  to  writing,  but  were  passed 
from  lip  to  lip,  in  a  living  tradition,  existing  only  as  they 
were  sung — the  direct  utterances  of  a  household  faith, 
when  households  themselves  were  not  as  yet  established 
in  fixed  liabitations,  when  hfe  was  nomadic,  free  as  the 
winds  and  the  streams,  and  immediately  respondent  to 
Nature.  They  were  chants  sung  at  sacrifices,  in  the  open 
air,  at  sunrise  and  noonday  and  sunset,  but  especially  at 
sunrise,  about  the  family  altar,  when  as  yet  there  were  no 
temples  and  no  fixed  hierarchy.  They  have  the  naive  sim- 
plicity of  childhood,  frankly  asking  for  all  material  good — 
whose  only  delight  is  in  the  using.  They  are  the  expres- 
sion of  a  simple  faith  like  that  of  the  Psalmist  of  Israel 
when  he  singeth,  "  The  Lord  is  my  shepherd  and  I  shall 
not  want."  There  are  heavenly  folds  this  Shepherd  hath, 
corresponding  to  His  earthly  folds — but  in  the  vision  of 
these  prophets  there  is  but  one  fold,  comprehending  all, 
and  one  Shepherd.  Man  is  inseparably  linked  with 
Nature.  We  find  here  a  divination  of  all  that  science  can 
ever  disclose,  even  when  it  shall  have  been  spiritually 
informed,  respecting  the  correlation  of  forces.  All  life  is 
flame.     The    Sun   is   God's    witness,    the   symbol    of  the 


PRIMITIVE   MEANING    OF  SACRIFICE.  zs 

invisible  flame,  which  is  also  the  principle  of  life  in  all  that 
lives,  and  has  its  symbol  also  in  the  sacrificial  fire. 

Here  also  do  we  find  the  primitive  significance  of  sacri- 
fice, which  is  not  a  propitiatory  offering,  but  a  feast,  where 
God,  the  friend,  the  brother,  the  associate  of  man,  becomes 
his  guest.  In  generating  the  sacrificial  flame  by  the  fric- 
tion of  two  pieces  of  wood,  (the  arafii,)  man  is  evoking 
under  his  own  hand  the  divine  principle ;  and  his  offering 
of  bread  and  wine  consumed  and  ascending  is  received  by 
God  as  a  token  of  human  co-operation  with  Him  —  of  the 
human  life  blending  with  and  uniting  its  strength  with  the 
divine.  There  are  no  misgivings,  no  expressions  of  fear, 
but  only  songs  of  exultation  because  of  this  intimate  and 
sacred  association  —  a  communion,  in  which  all  the  renew- 
ing, illuminating  strength  of  the  universe  is  concentrated 
for  the  exjDulsion  of  darkness  and  death. 

xvin 

In  these  hymns  we  are  introduced  to  polytheism  in  its 
simplest  form. 

The  diversification  of  God,  in  man's  thought  of  Him, 
is  as  natural  as  God's  diversification  of  Himself 
in   the   variety  of  His  manifestations.     It  is  a    Spiritual 

r  1  Origin  of 

process  corresponding  to  the  development  of  Ian-  poiythei 


ism. 


guage  itself,  and  foUows  the  changes  incident  to 
that  development ;  so  that,  while  the  first  personifications  of 
divinity  are  concrete,  they  afterward,  like  language,  repre- 
sent also  abstractions ;  and  this  later  representation  is  per- 
sistently retained  in  poetry.  Personification,  before  it 
becomes  a  conventional  habit,  is  a  spiritually  vitalised 
expression,  bearing  witness  to  a  spiritually  vital  impression. 
The  modern  man  is  very  far  removed  from  the  spiritual 
feeling  of  Nature.     His  observation  is  either  scientific,  to 


26  FROM   THE   BEGINNING. 

find  the  law  of  phenomena,  or  aesthetic  —  that  kind  of 
feeUng  which  prompts  the  painter  to  reproduce  a  land- 
scape upon  his  canvas,  or  a  trained  mind  like  Ruskin's  to 
follow  with  delight  and  most  delightfully  to  describe  the 
traits  of  a  stream  from  its  source  to  the  sea  or  the  transfor- 
mations of  clouds  from  morning  until  evening,  the  descrip- 
tion being  closely  confined  to  the  content  of  sensibihty. 
Far  different  was  the  feeling  of  the  primitive  Aryan  poet. 
He  followed  not  lines  of  thought  or  of  distinctively  lES- 
thetic  interpretation,  but  the  lines  of  life.  He  instinctively 
felt  what  science  ages  afterward  demonstrated  —  the  unity 
of  all  force.  The  butterflies  would  have  botanised  for 
him,  and  his  unconsciously  noted  generalisations,  based 
upon  their  habits,  would  have  been  surer  than  those  of 
Linnaeus.  He  cared  neither  for  precision  nor  for  com- 
pleteness, but  only  for  vital  suggestion  —  vital,  not  as  being 
useful  or  of  moral  value,  but  as  having  spiritual  meaning. 
He  questioned  Nature  not  with  his  mind  but  with  his  heart. 
It  was  a  loving  regard  by  which  he  touched  the  life  of 
God;  and  his  soul  answered  thereunto.  He  took  Nature 
to  heart. 

Now,  whatsoever  is  taken  into  the  heart  of  man  in  this 
loving  way  remains  no  longer  that  which  it  appears  to  the 
closely  scrutinising  eye.  Imagination,  "  the  vision  and 
the  faculty  divine,"  has  been  awakened,  as  in  the  lover  it 
ever  is,  and  one  sees  not  by  "  the  common  light  of  day," 
but  by  that  light  "  which  never  was  on  land  or  sea." 

The  coming  of  the  Dawn  is  a  great  spiritual  reality 
to  these  who  meet  it  with  their  Vedic  chants.  As  unto 
the  Psalmist,  the  Sun  seems  to  come  forth  like  a  bride- 
groom out  of  his  chamber.  Not  only  doth  he  reawaken 
and  renew  all  earthly  life,  but  he  brings  near  the  divine 
life  with  its  cherishing  warmth.  All  the  earth  responds  to 
his  loving  call  and  especially  all  soft  things,  the  dews  and 


ORIGIN    OF  /ANCESTOR    IVORS  HI  P.  27 

the  waters,  ascending,  in  beautiful  shapes,  Ughtening, 
exhaUng,    expanding,    and   vanishing   into    his   glory. 

The  night,  with  its  cold  and  distant  stars  and  its  deep 
calm  —  the  hushed  inward  breathing  of  all  life  —  is  the 
solemn  background  of  this  daily  repeated  Resurrection 
scene,  this  ever  fresh  Appearing  of  the  Lord.  Through 
the  chant  and  sacrifice,  man  leads  all  the  earthly  responses 
to  the  heavenly  awakening  and  quickening.  When, 
against  the  darkness  of  night,  first  flushes  the  bright  Dawn, 
rude  and  fresh  and  cool  —  with  a  calm  drawn  from  those 
deeper  heavens  which  now  he  hides  with  a  veil  of  rosy 
light,  a  calm  answering  to  that  which  in  all  earthly  breasts 
still  lingers  from  the  depths  of  sleep — when  his  awakening 
kiss  meets  the  dewy  lips  of  Earth,  coolness  for  coolness, 
after  long  waiting :  in  this  shyly  opening  tryst,  it  is  the 
voice  of  man  that  utters  in  song  the  quiet  joy  of  every  liv- 
ing creature,  greeting  its  newly  risen  Lord.  The  low  wind 
which  now  stirs  and  whispers  —  this,  in  man's  heart,  is 
the  way  of  the  Spirit.  And  as  the  Bridegroom  ascends, 
being  lifted  up  from  the  earth,  he  draws  all  men  unto  him ; 
all  life  follows  him,  rising  unto  the  noon-tide  of  blended 
earthly  and  heavenly  pulsation,  so  that  nothing  escapes  his 
brooding  love  —  "  nothing  is  hid  from  the  heat  thereof  "  ; 
and  in  this  following  pomp  man  leads,  as  representative 
and  respondent  for  all  the  earth ;  it  is  unto  him  especially 
that  the  Spirit  and  the  Bridegroom  call. 

This  intimate  association  of  the  human  and  divine  has 
in  it  no  element  of  strangeness,  so  long  as  it  is  real  and 
vital.  There  is  no  hne  of  separation  to  note  where  ceases 
the  human  or  where  the  divine  begins.  And  especially 
when  a  man  has  joined  the  invisible  throng  will  his  sons 
and  his  grandsons  regard  him  as  divine ;  and  thus  arose 
what  we  call  the  worship  of  ancestors  —  falsely  so  calling 
it,  if  by  worship  we  mean  more  than  is  implied  in  this  rec- 


28  FROM    THE    BEGINNING. 

ognition  of  the  divine  familiarity.  But  when  the  Hving 
sense  of  this  association  is  lost,  in  a  later  period,  the  idea 
of  it  still  lingers,  a  cold  and  lifeless  notion ;  the  idolatrous 
worship  halts  along  what  was  once  a  living  way ;  an  awe- 
inspiring  sorcery  takes  the  place  of  all  the  witcheries  of 
tender  and  caressant  lov^e,  and  repellant  spirits,  still  called 
"  familiar,"  leave  the  warm  sunshine  behind  them,  and  fre- 
quent the  dark  ways  communicating  with  a  world  which 
has  no  existence  apart  from  human  fears. 

But  in  this  era  of  the  Vedic  hymns,  neither  priestcraft 
nor  the  fears  upon  which  priestcraft  thrives  exist  as  yet. 
It  is  the  Prophet's  voice  that  is  dominant  —  true  to  the 
note  of  joyous  triumph  —  so  that  man  has,  in  divine  fellow- 
ship, a  joint  hold  upon  even  the  lightnings  of  heaven,  and 
rejoices  in  the  thunder,  having  only  that  fear  with  which 
the  child  loveth  to  be  afraid. 

As  in  this  period  there  is  no  fixed  hierarchy,  so  there  is 
no  definite  system  of  divinities,  like  that  of  Olympus,  and 
no  strict  demarcation  between  one  impersonation  of  a  spir- 
itually moved  imagination  and  another.  The  Nomen  — 
given  from  love  and  embodying  a  spiritual  suggestion  — 
has  not  yet  become  a  fixed  Numen,  ready  for  aesthetic  im- 
prisonment in  statuesque  form,  for  the  cruder  fashioning 
into  an  idol,  or  for  the  still  more  degrading  limitations  of 
fetichism.  The  readiest  diversification  of  God  is  most  nat- 
urally consistent  with  the  spiritual  idea  of  His  oneness. 
All  the  divine  personages  of  the  Vedic  hymns  are  united 
in  the  conception  of  Indra,  the  First  Born,  the  creator  of 
heaven  and  earth,  the  saviour  of  men.  He  resides  also  in 
the  human  heart  —  he  inspires  the  chant  that  is  sung  unto 
him.  There  is  a  more  spiritual  intimation  of  this  divine 
oneness  in  the  conception  of  Vak,  the  Word,  which  is  be- 
fore all,  which  hath  free  course  in  all  worlds,  and  showeth 
men  the  path  of  sacrifice  —  that  is,  of  fellowship  with  God. 


A    NATURAL    FAITH.  29 

A  sense  of  the  all-pervading  divine  life  implies  that  of 
its  essential  unity,  and  is  also  the  basis  of  that  inter-blend- 
ing of  the  human  with  the  divine  which  readily  endows 
the  former  with  divine  attributes  and  conceives  the  latter 
under  human  limitations.  The  later  developments  of  Hin- 
duism and  Buddhism  are  in  this  view  easily  understood, 
the  avatars  of  a  Vishnu  and  the  apotheosis  of  a  Gautama 
being  the  natural  offshoots  of  the  same  faith. 

XIX 

To  live  upon  God's  every  word,  which,  though  inarticu- 
late, is  none  the  less  a  means  of  intimate  communication 
with  Him  —  to  see  Him  in  all  that  is  visible,  and       ^j^^ 
to  recognise  Him  as  the  source  of  all  life  —  this     Spiritual 

_  .  Ground  of 

was  the  simplest  form  of  Aryan  faith.      Each  Metempsy- 
separate  word  of  this  divine  language  was  cap-     chosis. 
italised,   (what   we   call   personification,)  because   it  was 
taken  to  heart  and  magnified. 

This  faith  has  no  asceticism,  no  contempt  of  Nature  or 
of  life.  It  is  afterward  —  when  this  patriarchal  simplicity 
has  been  left  behind,  and  men  have  made  for  themselves 
fixed  habitations,  fixed  forms  and  systems;  when  the 
human  is  divorced  from  the  divine,  and  there  is  pride  in 
the  structures  which  man  has  made  and  in  the  life  which 
he  has  contrived  for  himself,  rather  than  joy  in  the  divine 
fellowship,  and  a  close  following  of  living  ways  —  that 
man  glories  in  penances  as  having  in  them  some  special 
strength  of  his  own,  preferring  a  human  to  a  divine  virtue. 
The  heavenly  is  no  longer  blended  with  the  earthly,  but 
flies  away  therefrom ;  and  man's  conceptions  of  a  future 
life,  shaped  by  his  pride  in  himself  and  his  unconscious 
contempt  of  God,  are  removed  as  far  as  possible  from  any 
similitude  to  Nature. 


30  FROM    THE   BEGINNING. 

As  in  tlie  period  of  the  Vedic  hymns  we  find,  in  the  tend- 
ency to  magnify  each  particular  manifestation  of  divinity, 
the  basis  of  polytheism,  so  do  we  find  here,  in  the  satisfaction 
of  faith  with  its  God-given  environment,  the  ground  for  the 
subsequent  development  of  the  doctrine  of  metempsychosis. 

All  spiritual  meanings  are  unfolded  from  the  beginning 
in  the  divine  manifestation  through  the  everlasting  Word — 
so  they  be  spiritually  discerned.  In  one  of  the  Vedic 
hymns  we  find  this  strain :  "  There  is  one  who  seeing  seeth 
not  the  Word,  and  another  who  hearing  heareth  it  not; 
but  whoso  receiveth  it  with  loving  heart,  his  union  there- 
with is  like  that  of  the  bride  with  the  bridegroom."  They 
who  readily  discern  the  meaning  in  the  natural  embodiment 
thereof  lay  little  stress  upon  the  supernatural,  as  a  separate 
and  distinct  world.  So  long  as  God  is  felt  to  be  every- 
where in  His  world  as  He  has  made  it,  He  is  not  sought 
elsewhere  in  a  world  of  man's  imagining.  Holding  to  Na- 
ture as  a  living,  flowing  reality,  soft  as  wind  or  water  or 
flame,  the  soul  has  safe  moorings ;  but  when  it  has  made 
of  this  nature  a  lifeless,  hard  and  inhospitable  coast,  it  for 
safety  puts  out  to  the  open  and  unfamiliar  sea.  The  divine 
ever  wooes  us  to  familiarity  with  itself  "  He  that  seeth 
and  breatheth  and  comprehendeth,  taketh  meat  with  me," 
saith  the  Word,  in  another  Vedic  hymn.  When  the  human 
soul  refuses  this  persistent  suitor,  and  sets  up  for  itself,  it 
builds  not  only  a  Palace  of  Art  but  a  magnificent  Temple 
of  Faith,  which,  in  every  part  of  the  structure,  is  a  denial  of 
God  and  Nature,  and  which  it  devotes  to  the  Supernatural. 

Yet  it  is  with  great  difiiculty  that  the  supernatural  has 
secured  any  firm  hold  upon  the  heart  of  man.  In  all  ancient 
religions  the  earth  was  the  centre  of  all  movements,  of  flight 
as  of  return  —  even  as  the  mists,  to  whatever  heights  they 
may  rise,  always  return  to  the  sea.  It  is  only  within  a  com- 
jjaratively  recent  period  that  Tartarus  and  Paradise  have 


THE   BELIEF   IN   RE-INCARNATION.  31 

been  quite  removed  beyond  the  circle  of  the  earth.  The 
Hebrew,  even  in  the  utmost  reach  of  prophetic  vision, 
conceived  of  a  future  Hfe  only  as  following  an  earthly 
resurrection.  Of  the  Sheol  or  of  the  Paradise  which  inter- 
vened between  death  and  this  resurrection  there  was  no 
definite  shaping  in  his  thought,  which  was  wholly  occupied 
with  the  glories  upon  earth  of  the  Messianic  kingdom, 
a  kingdom  which,  in  the  prophetic  conception,  was  to 
include  all  peoples. 

So  joyous  was  the  intimacy  of  the  primitive  Aryan 
with  Nature  that  he  could  not  have  conceived  of  a  life 
destitute  thereof  The  glances  of  departed  ones  met  him 
in  the  sunlight,  and  he  heard  their  breathing  in  the  wind. 
It  was  a  simple,  formless  faith  —  an  instinctive  clinging  to 
Nature  as  the  only  divine  life  which  had  been  revealed  to 
him  —  having  no  resemblance  to  the  elaborate  system  of 
metempsychosis  which  grew  out  of  it  in  Brahmanism.  He 
thought  of  Indra  not  only  as  First  Bom  but  as  "bom 
many  times  " ;  and  he  would  more  readily  regard  human 
destiny  as  forever  closely  linked  with  Nature  through  re- 
peated submission  to  her  ordinances  of  birth  and  death. 

There  is  in  all  of  us  something  which  answers  to  this 
older  instinct  binding  us  to  the  earth.  Though  death  may 
seem  for  each  the  consummation  of  a  rite  by  which  Nature 
is  immolated  at  the  shrine  of  the  Supernatural,  yet  the  cur- 
tain falls,  and  we  are  left  in  doubt.  The  one  brief  hfe 
seems  but  a  small  segment  of  a  great  arch,  and  for  its 
very  explanation  demands  all  the  future  as  well  as  all  the 
past.  Even  though  we  long  for  release  —  and  there  has 
been  developed  in  us  this  other  tendency  also,  toward 
flight,  toward  heaven  as  an  exchange  for  earth  through 
some  sudden  translation  —  can  we  be  sure  that  our  escape 
from  the  familiar  bond  is  any  part  of  the  divine  scheme  ? 
Has  what  we  call  the  supernatural  life,  which  for  the  most 


32  FROM   THE   BEGINNING. 

part  we  have  shaped  to  suit  ourselves,  a  stronger  claim 
than  the  life  upon  whose  endless  renewal  there  is  the 
divine  impress  ?  Is  it  more  than  an  ever  repeated  illu- 
sion—  this  release  of  man,  through  death,  from  Nature, 
and  his  attainment  of  the  Supernatural  ? 

Raphael  in  the  Farnesina  palace  painted  pictures  repre- 
senting the  various  scenes  in  the  legend  of  Psyche  —  the 
Hellenic  tyj^e  of  the  aspiring  human  soul  —  from  the  first 
exposure  of  the  maiden  upon  the  desert  mountain  to  her 
maiTiage  with  Eros  in  heaven.  Yet,  looking  upon  this 
marriage,  we  seem  to  wait  as  for  the  breaking  of  some  spell 
at  the  very  acme  of  the  realisation  of  Psyche's  dream, 
when  she  shall  find  herself  again  exposed  upon  the  mount- 
ain, again  to  be  borne  by  the  Zephyrs  to  the  strange 
palace,  where  she  is  again  wooed  by  the  invisible  god,  and 
again  —  after  the  repeated  sin  of  forbidden  knowledge  — 
wanders  in  search  of  her  departed  lover,  till  again  the 
grand  illusion  of  triumph  is  repeated,  and  so  on,  Hfe  after 
life,  forever. 

The  expectation  of  re -incarnation  has  in  all  times  been 
especially  associated  with  the  world's  heroes.  Thus  Arthur 
yet  waits  in  Avalon  to  rule  Britain,  as  Holger  Danske  in 
the  Hidden  Isle  to  deliver  Denmark,  Charlemagne  sleeps 
under  the  Untersberg,  waiting  to  liberate  France,  and  Bar- 
barossa  in  the  subterranean  vaults  of  Kyphausen's  castle, 
till  his  beard  shall  have  grown  through  the  stone  table  be- 
fore him,  when  he  will  again  appear,  a  terror  to  his  foes. 

XX 

What  in  the  beginning  was  a  simple  instinctive  response 
to  divine  suggestion  in  Nature  became  in  later  times,  in  the 
system  of  Brahmanism,  a  fixed  doctrine.  Life  itself  had 
changed,  and  had  become  an  imprisonment  of  the  soul, 


THE    GOSPEL   OF  THE    NIRl^AN^.  33 

so  that  the  human  heart  protested  against  the  endless 
iteration  of  this  bondage.  This  protest  found  voice  in 
Buddhism.  Asceticism  in  various  forms  had 
already  been  developed ;  and  the  reader  of  the  The  Protest 
Upanishads  will  find  there  in  speculative  form  Buddhism. 
all  the  essential  tenets  of  Buddhism.  But  Prince 
Gautama  gave  these  tenets  a  new  form,  crystallising 
them  in  his  own  wonderful  life  —  a  life  made  still  more 
wonderful  by  subsequent  legend.  The  picturesque  and 
dramatic  incidents  of  his  career,  from  his  renunciation  of 
liis  royal  estate  until  his  death  at  an  advanced  age ;  his 
fully  rounded  system  of  teaching,  directly  imparted  to  fol- 
lowers personally  attached  to  him ;  his  abolition  of  caste, 
and  his  minute  regulations  for  the  conduct,  or,  rather,  for 
the  extirpation,  of  life,  gave  him  a  place  in  Eastern  faith 
which  no  other  man,  if  we  except  Confucius,  ever  occupied. 
He  accepted  the  entire  Hindu  pantheon  and  the  doctrine 
of  the  transmigration  of  souls;  but,  contemplating  the 
hard  conditions  of  human  life,  and  considering  that  death 
itself  was  no  release;  reasoning  also  that,  if  God  were 
good.  He  could  not  be  all-powerful,  or,  if  all-powerful,  He 
could  not  be  good, — so  that  man  could  not  look  unto  Him 
for  help, — he  determined  to  find  a  way  for  humanity  out  of 
its  distresses.  The  only  path  was  one  out  of  all  life — an 
escape  from  all  divine  manifestation  and  from  human  oper- 
ation and  consciousness.  Hence  the  Gospel  of  the  Nir- 
vana. The  ultimate  and  only  possible  blessedness  must  be 
the  extinction  of  existence.  It  could  not  be  called  a  faith, 
unless  Atheism  be  a  faith.  But  it  was  consistent.  Turn- 
ing his  back  upon  what  he  acknowledged  to  be  divine 
ordinances,  he  never  at  the  same  time  professed  to  exalt 
God,  nor  was  he  so  vain  as  to  think  that  he  could  propose 
other  and  better  ordinances  in  the  place  of  those  he  rejected. 
His  gospel  of  religious  Nihilism  was  as  methodical  as  it  was 


34  FROM    THE    BEGINNING. 

radical.  He  diligently  "  turned  the  wheel  of  the  law  "  that 
he  might  surely  find  the  way  to  reverse  all  the  processes  of 
Nature  and  destroy  desire  at  its  very  source.  He  preached 
the  thorough  contempt  of  life,  and,  finally,  the  contempt 
of  the  very  processes  —  the  renunciation  and  the  mortifica- 
tion— for  its  extinction. 

It  is  wonderful  that  a  religion  so  negative  should  have 
held  sway  in  India  for  eighteen  centuries ;  and  it  was  not 
until,  through  the  wealth  and  magnificence  of  its  monas- 
teries, it  had  denied  its  own  negations,  that  the  older 
system  of  Brahmanism,  with  its  divine  avatars  and  human 
re-incarnations,  swept  it  away. 


XXI 

It  is  a  long  leap  from  the  early  Aryan  faith,  as  rep- 
resented  in   the   Vedic   hymns,  to  that   of  the   Grecian 
branch  of  the  same   race.     Here  we  have  no 
Detdo'"    record  reaching  back  to  the  primitive  simplicity 
mentof    and    frccdom    of    a    patriarchal    period.     We 
confront   at   once    a    fixed   polytheism    and    a 
dramatic  ritual.     We  find  indications  of  a  once  dominant 
prophetic   influence  —  associated  with   simple   household 
rites — in  the  Orphic  fragments,*  but  long  ago  the  poet 
and  the  priest  have  supplanted  the  prophet.     The  personi- 
fications of  divinity  have  taken  each  a  definite  shape,  and 
there  is  a  complex  system  of  polytheism  because  of  the 
blending  together  of  many  peoples,  each  having  its  own 

*  In  the  following  Orphic  hymn,  we  recognize  the  characteristic 
Vedic  strain  : 

"  Render  us  always  flourishing,  always  happy,  O  household  Fire ! 
Thou  who  art  eternal,  beautiful,  always  young,  thou  who  nourishes!, 
thou  who  art  rich,  receive  our  offerings  with  good  will,  and  give  us  in 
return  the  happiness  and  health  which  are  so  sweet." 


HELLENIC   DEVELOPMENT.  35 

divinities.  If  we  might  trace  each  separate  line  of  faith 
back  to  its  source,  we  should  reach  an  era  of  simplicity, 
having  something  of  the  free  atmosphere  of  the  early  Aryan 
communion  with  Nature.  Apollo  would  stand  in  the  place 
of  Indra.  We  find  not  only  a  complex  polytheism,  but  an 
equally  complex  system  of  myths  expanded  into  legends  — 
afterthoughts  of  poetic  or  popular  fancy — confusing  the 
simpler  suggestions  of  Nature. 

These  Hellenic  peoples  have  had  a  history,  and  we  have 
to  take  into  account  distinctively  human  influences,  like 
those  of  the  heroic  age,  as  modifying  faith.  We  have  to 
distinguish  between  Hellenic  and  Pelasgic  elements  —  the 
one  flowing,  the  other  fixed,  but  both  Aryan ;  between  the 
political  religion  and  that  of  the  sacred  Mysteries ;  between 
the  freely  developed  Hfe  of  the  colonies  —  the  Ionic  espe- 
cially—  and  that  of  the  mainland,  adhering  tenaciously  to 
old  traditions. 

The  development  of  Hellas  is  a  representative  drama 
of  humanity,  whether  we  consider  its  religion,  its  polity,  its 
art,  or  its  philosophy.  Its  faith  takes  us  back  to  Egypt 
and  Asia,  and  reaches  forward  to  Christendom.  In  the 
evolution  of  its  political  hfe,  it  foreshadows  all  possible 
forms  of  government.  There  can  be  no  aesthetic  construc- 
tion or  criticism  which  does  not  refer  first  and  constantly 
to  the  Hellenic  types  of  Art;  and  in  Aristotle  and  Plato  we 
have  the  mirror  of  all  human  speculation.  The  brightest 
example  of  ancient  freedom,  Hellas  sought  not  the  mastery 
of  the  world.  It  was  over  the  ruins  of  Grecian  liberty 
that  Alexander  proceeded  to  the  establishment  of  his 
Grecian  empires  in  Asia.  The  history  of  Hellenic  civili- 
sation is  a  complete  arch,  not  of  iron  but  of  gold,  frail  but 
beautiful,  the  type  of  heroic  aspiration  and  of  intellectual 
subtlety — as  represented  by  Achifles  and  Ulysses — rather 
than  of  sincerity  and  spiritual  strength.     We  are  permitted 


36  FROM    THE   BEGINNING. 

to  see  not  only  the  rise  of  this  great  confederation  of  states 
and  its  consummate  glory  in  the  age  of  Pericles,  but  also 
its  decay,  through  the  operation  of  the  very  forces  which 
exalted  it. 


XXII 

From  our  first  approach  to  this  complex  human  drama, 
it  is  its  Hellenism  which  impresses  us  —  the  spirit  of  hero- 
ism, beauty  and   song.     The  time  is  gone  by 

Develop-  -^  ,,,*:.,.  .  , 

mentofa    whcn  the  gods  held  familiar  converse  with  men 
Hierarchy  — ^j^^^.  j-g^-j-iote  era  spokcn  of  by  Plato  in  his 

and  of  a  '■ 

Dramatic    Kritias.    There  is  a  distinctively  human  handling 

^""''''  and  shaping  of  the  divine  life.  The  men  and 
women  of  the  heroic  age  claim  kinship  with  the  gods,  but 
it  is  the  claim  of  aristocratic  pride. 

If  we  could  look  back  beyond  this  Hellenic  dominion, 
we  should  discover  the  earliest  priestly  brotherhoods, 
which  doubdess  arose,  as  in  Egypt,  contemporaneously 
with  the  institution  of  caste.  The  organisation  of  the  sa- 
cred Mysteries  by  these  brotherhoods  succeeded  to  the 
simplest  form  of  Nature-worship,  corresponding  to  that 
which   found   utterance  in  the   Vedic  hymns. 

The  characteristic  peculiarity  of  the  earUest  priestly,  as 
of  the  earliest  royal,  caste  was  its  exclusiveness.  The 
priests  accordingly  gave  to  the  Mysteries  the  sanctity  of 
inviolable  secrecy.  A  human  institution  had  taken  the 
place  of  a  divine  inspiration.  Religious  worship,  with- 
drawn from  the  open  air,  hid  itself  in  the  Mysteries,  and 
had  its  nourishment  in  the  dark ;  its  divinities  were  veiled 
and  immured.  If  there  was  a  tendency  to  hide  what  was 
sacred,  there  was  a  corresponding  disposition  to  hold  in 
awful  reverence  what  was  hidden. 

The  more  a  religious  sentiment  is  embodied  in  a  palpa- 


THE   PRE-EMINENCE    OF  THE    PRIESTHOOD.     37 

ble  structure,  the  more  necessary  is  the  association  with  it 
of  mystery,  to  give  it  dignity  and  authority.  The  Shekinah, 
which  is  the  visible  presence  of  Jehovah,  must  needs  be  en- 
shrined in  the  Holy  of  Hohes,  to  which  the  High  Priest 
himself  has  access  but  Once  a  year.  The  Egyptian  Apis, 
the  incarnate  representation  of  Osiris,  had  its  secret  en- 
closure in  the  temple  at  Memphis.  When  the  emblems  of 
a  god  are  lodged  in  a  sacred  ark  or  in  a  sacred  basket, 
as  in  the  ark  of  Osiris  and  the  Eleusinian  cisla,  familiarity 
with  them  must  be  forbidden.  The  privileged  class  which 
is  made  the  depositary  of  sacred  things  is  invested  with 
more  than  kingly  power.  Achilles  stands  by  the  priestly 
Calchas  rather  than  by  the  royal  Agamemnon ;  and  it  is  to 
be  remembered  that  sometimes,  in  this  dark  epoch,  human 
sacrifice  —  as  was  the  case  between  this  same  Calchas  and 
Agamemnon  —  was  a  possible  result  of  priestly  divination, 
and  such  a  diviner  was  regarded  with  no  common  awe. 

As  the  priest  assumed  the  fullest  initiation  to  the  Mys- 
teries, he  exercised  the  highest  hermeneutical  capacity. 
He  above  all  others  was  endowed  with  the  gift  of  divina- 
tion. However  trivial  the  tokens  —  be  they  only  the  flight 
of  birds  or  the  phenomena  attending  sacrifice,  before  or 
after,  or  if  indeed  there  were  no  token  whatsoever,  but 
only  some  divine  afflatus  pecuhar  to  certain  localities,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  oracles  at  Delphi,  Dodona,  Aba^,  and 
in  the  Trophonian  Cave  —  yet  the  decree  was  imperative. 

The  influence  of  these  oracles  is  incalculable.  They 
were  the  active  centres  of  pohtical  as  well  as  of  religious 
movement.  Cities  were  built  and  colonies  founded  at 
their  suggestion.  Every  dilemma  in  which  men  became 
involved,  if  advice  was  asked  of  the  oracle,  was  made 
a  fresh  occasion  for  further  suggestion.  The  stuttering 
Battus  has  no  sooner  come  within  the  range  of  the  weird 
Pythoness's  vision  at  Delphi  than  he  is  arrested  on  the 
6 


38  FROM    THE   BEGINNING. 

spot  and  his  affairs  peremptorily  settled  for  some  years  to 
come.  "  Battus,  thou  art  come  about  thy  voice.  King 
Apollo  hath  need  of  thee  in  Libya  in  the  way  of  a  colony." 

It  is  not  until  men  have  made  a  complex  life  of  their 
own,  and  have  established  that  life  in  fixed  foiins,  in  cities 
and  institutions,  that  they  make  an  institution  of  rehgion, 
confine  their  divinities  within  temples,  and  surrender  to  a 
priestly  order  the  deepest  meanings  of  their  faith,  and 
a  distinction  is  made  between  esoteric  and  exoteric 
interpretation. 

The  change  which  has  taken  place  is  momentous.  In 
a  simpler  life  man  was  more  receptive  in  his  attitude 
toward  God.  The  divine  was  everything,  filling  all  unto 
overflowing.  Now  the  human  has  taken  the  divine  in 
hand  —  the  priest,  or  mystagogus,  leading,  and  giving  what 
he  will,  and  in  what  shape  he  will,  unto  the  multitude. 

The  sacrifice,  which  at  first  was  a  loving  communion, 
begins  to  have  associated  with  it  the  idea  of  propitiation. 
The  theological  conception  of  mediation  is  born,  taking 
the  place  of  the  direct  approach  to  the  Father,  and  the 
priest  is  the  first  mediator.  The  primitive  Aryan  com- 
munion was  but  a  step  from  that  of  Eden,  but  what  a 
remove  is  this  second  step  in  the  degeneration  of  faith ! 

At  first  the  priest,  in  this  conventional  organisation  of 
society,  simply  follows  a  tendency  already  existing,  and  for 
which  he  is  in  no  way  responsible.  He  has  the  same 
right  to  the  thyrsus  that  the  king  has  to  the  sceptre  —  a 
right  voluntarily  accorded.  But  the  tendency  is  reinforced 
by  both  king  and  priest  —  the  latter  having  this  advan- 
tage, that  his  dominion  reaches  not  only  to  all  the  crises 
of  life,  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  but  beyond  death 
into  the  unseen  world. 

In  the  primitive  age  of  faith,  all  Nature  was  a  divine 
drama,  and  man  seemed  to  himself  to  be  a  participant  in 


A   DRAMATIC    RITUAL. 


1>9 


its  glorious  procession.  The  spiritual  conception  of  the 
divine  life  was  so  large  and  luminous  that  it  easily  accepted 
as  its  embodiment  the  entire  universe.  But  now  a  humanly 
shaped  system  of  faith  finds  its  dramatic  expression  in  an 
elaborate  ceremonial,  connected  with  the  initiation  into 
the  Mysteries,  and  in  splendid  processions.  Having  but 
the  semblance  of  faith,  the  multitude  is  satisfied  by  out- 
ward shows,  secondary  and  remote  symbols,  and  a  firmly 
established  material  structure. 

The  ritual  and  the  symbols,  though  obscuring,  have  not 
entirely  lost  their  spiritual  meaning.  But,  under  priestly 
direction,  the  dramatic  expression  of  faith  has  been  shaped 
with  reference  to  a  profound  and  awe-inspiring  effect  upon 
the  outward  sense. 

In  Greece  we  have  no  record  of  the  celebration  of  the 
sacred  Mysteries  before  the  incorporation  with  them  of 
distinctively  Hellenic  elements.  It  is,  indeed,  only  as 
Hellas  that  Greece  has  a  history.  And  this  Hellenism  is 
so  conspicuously  dominant,  through  its  heroic  and  aesthetic 
impulses,  in  all  political  institutions,  in  all  public  games 
and  festivals,  in  the  political  religion,  in  literature  and  art 
— in  all  that  is  characteristic  of  Greek  civilisation,  that 
only  as  the  result  of  the  closest  scrutiny  can  we  compre- 
hend the  strength  of  the  older  Pelasgic  faith. 

XXIII 

Herodotus  and  others  claim  that  from  the  Egyptians, 
as  being  the  most  ancient  people,  the  rest  of  the  world 
received    all    religious     institutions — sacrifices, 
divinations,    festivals  and  processions.     Such   a   r^^f^^ 

'  ^  iradition. 

tradition,    though    not    necessary    in    order    to 

account   for  these  institutions,  has  in  it  doubtless   much 

truth.     While  everywhere  there  was  a  local  development 


40  FROM   THE    BEGINNING. 

(jf  religious  worship,  there  was  also  the  modification  of 
it  by  foreign  tradition.  Evidences  of  such  tradition  are 
abundant  in  the  earUest  records  of  Greek  civihsation. 

While  the  tendency  of  any  civilisation  in  its  first  stages  is 
not  only  toward  stability  but  also  toward  an  isolated  and 
exclusive  local  development,  this  provincial  crystallisation 
of  life  is  never  permitted  to  complete  itself.  The  divinity, 
in  the  pagan  conception  of  his  purposes,  was  never  favor- 
ably disposed  to  the  full  flowering  of  any  human  stock 
upon  its  native  soil,  but  rather  favored  transplantations, 
with  repeated  interruptions  and  new  beginnings  of  growth. 
Even  as  the  builders  of  Babel  were  dispersed,  so  through 
his  oracle,  as  we  have  seen,  Apollo  sent  the  stuttering 
Battus  from  his  island  home  in  the  ,.^gean  to  the  des- 
erts of  Africa. 

In  the  remote  past,  before  Greece  was  Hellenised  by 
successive  waves  of  invasion  from  the  North,  the  Mysteries 
existed,  in  connection  with  a  ceremonial  and  a  hierarchy 
of  which  we  have  no  definite  record.  In  Attica  and  Ar- 
cadia they  probably  preserved  their  ancient  integrity  until 
the  Dorian  Invasion — nearly  a  century  after  the  siege  of 
Troy.  To  the  end,  Dionysus  and  Demeter  kept  their 
place  in  the  hearts  of  the  people,  while  the  Olympian 
Apollo  and  Athene  remained  as  the  bright  stars  of  a  fir- 
mament that  overarched  the  heroic  past. 

Many  mythologic  personages  had  come,  before  the 
strictly  historic  era,  to  be  but  the  faint  shadows  of  their 
original  reality  in  human  faith.  Thus  had  passed  away 
the  first  sacredness  of  the  homage  paid  to  Kronos  and 
the  Titans,  with  its  dread  hints  of  human  sacrifice  —  an 
homage  which  still  lingered  in  the  worship  of  Neptune. 
Rhea  was  almost  forgotten,  so  fully  had  Demeter  taken 
her  place;  and  Aphrodite  had  degenerated  from  her 
Uranian  title  and  estate. 


HELLENISM  HEROIC  RATHER   THAN  SPIRITUAL.   41 

In  this  confused  system  of  Greek  polytheism,  we  find 
our  way  only  by  the  light  of  dim  constellations,  groups  of 
mythic  names,  as  to  whose  antiquity  in  time,  or  mutations 
in  space  we  are  quite  in  the  dark.  These  divine  dynasties, 
like  the  human,  are  forever  passing  out  of  view  into  the 
baths  of  the  Western  sea.  Thus  the  Titans  pass,  and  the 
Olympians  hold  their  place  in  the  upper  sky — just  as  have 
passed  the  Inachids  at  Argos,  giving  place  to  the  Danaids ; 
while  the  returning  Heraclidje,  with  the  Dorians  in  their 
train,  have  entirely  changed  the  face  of  the  Grecian 
heavens. 

XXIV 

The  Hellenic  aristocracy  of  the  heroic  age  prided  itself 
upon  its  Olympian  ancestry.  Nestor  was  grandson  of 
Neptune ;  and  all  the  ^oHds  contemporary  with  ^^^  Heroic 
him  —  including  Helen  and  Clytemnestra  —  were  Element  in 
only  eight  generations  removed  from  their  Titan-  Brothe?- 
ic  ancestor,  Prometheus.  Achilles  was  the  great-  ^°°'^^- 
grandson  of  Jove,  and  his  sobs  by  the  seaside  draw  to 
him  his  divine  mother,  the  silver-footed  Thetis.  In  the 
Homeric  epics,  the  gods  participate  in  the  strife  on  the 
field  of  Troy,  and  attend  Ulysses  in  his  wanderings.  But 
this  famiharity  with  the  gods  was  not  that  of  the  golden 
age;  the  association  is  due  mainly  to  human  pride  — 
even  more  so  than  the  analogous  minghng  of  human 
with  divine  personages  in  the  Hindu  Mahabharata,  which 
retains  much  of  the  spiritual  significance  characteristic  of 
the  primitive  age. 

The  Hellenic  enthusiasm  —  the  feeling  of  the  divine  in 
the  human  —  was  a  heroic  rather  than  a  spiritual  senti- 
ment. And  this  strain  enters  prominently  into  the  religious 
developrnent  of  the  heroic  age,  its  effect  being  nowhere 
more  apparent  than  in  the  sacred  brotherhoods.     Coinci- 


42  FROM   THE   BEGINNING. 

dent  with  the  apotlieosis  of  the  hero  was  the  divine  exalta- 
tion of  the  hierophant,  to  whom  was  attributed  a  super- 
natural wisdom.  The  Homeric  Calchas  knew  everything 
—  what  had  been,  what  was,  and  what  was  to  come.  He 
it  was  who  directed  the  Grecian  fleet  to  Troy,  piloting  the 
divinely  heroic  craft  by  a  divine  steerage. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  trace  the  history  of  the  sacred 
brotherhoods  as  organised  about  the  hierophants  of  Dodona, 
Thebes,  Samothrace  and  Eleusis,  and  especially  to  make 
acquaintance  with  those  of  Olympus  and  Parnassus  —  for 
it  was  about  these  that  the  tide  of  heroism  rose  highest, 
reaching  with  its  refluence  to  Asia  on  the  one  hand  and  to 
the  Pillars  of  Hercules  on  the  other — to  the  Hyperboreans 
in  the  North  and  to  the  Ethiopians  in  the  South.  But  we 
find  few  indications  of  these  fraternities  until  nearly  600 
B.  C,  when  they  branch  out  into  world-wide  connections. 
During  the  preceding  centuries  —  the  twilight  of  Grecian 
history  —  all  the  movements  preparatory  to  the  historic 
dawn,  whether  religious,  political,  philosophical  or  artistic, 
had  their  beginnings  in  these  mystic  brotherhoods.  This 
preparation  was  going  on  mainly  in  the  North  at  first  —  in 
Thrace  and  Thessaly  —  but  its  movements  kept  pace  with 
the  Hellenic  advance  southward. 

XXV 

We   first    especially   note    this    new   departure   in   the 
Orphic  sect,  which  originated  in  Thrace,  Orpheus  him- 
self being   a   Thracian    prince.     According    to 
TheOrphic  piut^rch  there  was  a  resemblance  between  the 

Sect. 

Orphic  ritual  and  that  of  the  Edonians  and 
Thracians  at  Mt.  Hasmus.  Passing  from  Hosmus  to 
Pieria,  we  find  Orpheus  the  leader  of  the  Pierian  brother- 
hood.   Here  he  sang,  died,  and  was  buried.     He  was  also 


THE    ORPHIC    MOl/EMENT.  43 

the  acknowledged  founder  of  the  brotherhood  at  Parnas- 
sus, whither,  it  is  said,  his  bones  were  removed  for  a 
second  interment.  Either  with  this  removal  or  with  some 
transference  of  Apollo's  worship — probably  with  both — 
the  centre  of  sacred  interest  was  shifted  from  Olympus 
to  Parnassus,  where  Apollo  was  the  enshrined  god  and 
Orpheus  the  inspired  prophet. 

The  elements  comprising  the  Orphic  movement  were 
brought  together  from  widely  distant  sources  through  vari- 
ous traditions.  We  find  traces  of  the  mysticism  of  Egypt 
and  the  wild  phrensy  of  Phrygia,  and  with  these  were 
blended  the  Cabiric  legends  which  were  so  widely  diffused 
throughout  Greece.  Thebes  also  rendered  her  tribute. 
Osiris,  Dionysus  and  Apollo  seem  blended  into  one — the 
features  of  the  last,  in  this  early  stage,  being  dominant,  as 
in  the  other  Hellenic  brotherhoods.  The  heroic  associa- 
tion is  evident  from  the  prominence  of  Orpheus  in  the 
Argonautic  expedition,  which  he  celebrated  in  epic  verse. 

A  remarkable  feature  of  this  sect  was  its  connection 
with  poetry.  The  Muses  were  the  sisters  of  Orpheus. 
The  brotherhood  consisted  of  bards,  among  whom  was 
Hesiod ;  and,  from  the  spread  of  the  sect  eastward  in  the 
Ionic  migration,  we  may  account  for  the  tradition  that 
Homer  was  an  Orphic. 

Identified  at  first  with  the  prevalent  Hellenic  worship 
of  Apollo,  the  sect  became  afterward  associated  with  the 
Eleusinian  Mysteries,  through  the  Orphic  Eumolpus.  The 
association  was  probably  only  legendary,  but  the  legend  is 
significant  as  showing  the  tendency  of  all  religious  institu- 
tions to  connect  themselves  with  the  old  poet  and  prophet, 
and  to  claim  an  Orphic  leavening. 

But  this  Orphic  influence  in  Greece  was  very  different 
from  the  prophetic  movement  in  Judea.  Instead  of  deep- 
ening the  spiritual  current  of  Grecian  life  by  breaking  up 


44  FROM   THE   BEGINNING. 

its  hierarchical  constructions  and  by  counteracting  its  heroic 
tendencies,  it  alhed  itself  on  the  one  hand  with  a  more 
complex  system  of  theology,  of  a  mystical  and  allegorical 
character,  and,  on  the  other,  with  the  intellectual  forces 
which  were  finally  to  undermine  the  entire  religious  struc- 
ture. It  was,  in  the  one  case,  the  reinforcement  of  a 
humanly  shaped  ritual,  preferring  it  to  a  divinely  impelled 
drama, — preferring  also  human  saints  and  heroes  to  the 
divine  saviours;  while,  in  the  other,  it  was  to  lead  in  a 
movement  which  could  only  end  in  the  substitution  of  in- 
tellectual and  moral  for  spiritual  development. 

Thus,  as  we  approach  the  historical  period,  we  find  spe- 
cial rites  of  purification  coming  into  vogue,  under  Orphic 
auspices,  and  more  complexity  of  detail  in  mystic  ceremon- 
ies. The  conscious  imagination  has  more  scope.  A  new 
importance  is  now  given  to  the  mystagogue.  Orpheus  is 
clothed  with  new  attributes,  and  an  allegorical  significance  is 
attached  to  his  descent  to  Hades  and  his  rescue  of  Euryd- 
ice,  as  also  to  the  restoration  of  Alcestis  by  Hercules — 
since  these  are  made  the  signs  of  a  saving  power  vested 
in  saints  and  heroes.  Certain  eminent  saints  become  cen- 
tres of  special  interest  and  hope  by  virtue  of  their  holy  life. 
Such  an  one  was  Aristeas,  who  was  reputed  to  have  been 
several  times  marvellously  raised  from  the  dead.  Such  were 
Thaletus  and  Epimenides,  the  latter  of  whom  was  invited 
by  Solon  to  purify  Athens,  preparatory  to  his  legislative  re- 
forms. Among  the  Thracians,  Zamolxis  was  worshipped, 
it  being  believed  that  he  was  removed  from  earth  for  the 
space  of  three  years,  after  which  he  appeared  again  among 
men,  teaching  them  the  doctrines  of  a  future  life.  Through 
one  sign  of  divinity  or  another,  whether  through  some  sup- 
posed miracle  or  by  virtue  of  their  extraordinary  purity  of 
life,  these  saints  became  centres  of  special  sects,  in  all  of 
which  the  old  Mysteries  were  continued  with  their  Orphic 


MAGICAL   INTERPRETATION   OF  NATURE.        45 

modifications.  Thus  the  disciples  of  Epimenides  were 
Orphic,  as  was  also  the  Pythagorean  sect,  springing  up  a 
little  later  in  Italy.  It  was  in  this  way  that  the  Orphic 
tenets  and  ritual  had  so  wide  a  spread,  and  that  Orpheus 
held  so  large  a  place  in  the  representations  on  sepulchral 
vases  in  lower  Italy.  When  the  Pythagoreans  were  so 
widely  diffused  in  Greece  and  her  colonies  they  still  retained 
the  Orphic  worship  of  Dionysus. 

The  imagination,  though  it  has  taken  quite  freely  in  hand 
all  the  elements  of  faith,  is  still  held  spellbound  to  the  tem- 
ple-shrines, but  a  change  has  passed  over  the  faces  of  her 
divinities,  which  have  in  them  more  of  the  brightness  of 
Apollo. 

Science  and  Art,  that  have  hitherto  slept  in  the  sacred 
enclosures,  awake  under  the  Orphic  influence ;  but  their 
awakening  is  like  that  of  Eurydice,  who  unsteadily  follows 
the  spell  of  her  lord's  music,  being  at  the  same  time  held 
by  a  spell  which  binds  her  to  the  lord  of  darkness.  The 
Orphic  movement  has  still  some  trace  of  its  nursing  in  the 
far  North,  (through  its  connection  with  Apollo,  whose  old- 
est tradition  associates  him  with  the  Hyperboreans,)  the 
ancient  home  of  sorcery  and  enchantment.  The  earliest 
development  of  Grecian  philosophy  —  especially  among 
the  Pythagoreans,  who  had  an  elaborate  system  of  magic  — 
is  full  of  indications  of  the  weird  spell  still  holding  man  to 
Nature,  as  to  a  sentient  world,  with  which  he  has  commu- 
nication not  through  living  and  luminous  ways,  but  through 
the  devious  intricacies  of  astrology  and  necromancy. 

When  the  Delphic  oracle  fails  —  that  mighty  sensorium 
of  the  ancient  world  and  centre  of  a  thousand  thorough- 
fares of  fate  —  there  is  established  in  its  place,  under  the 
auspices  of  the  intellect,  a  sort  of  mystical  rapport  with  the 
universe ;  and,  in  the  place  of  the  wild  Pythoness,  certain 
philosophers  stand  as  the  especial  Magi  of  Nature,  (like 


46  FROM   THE   BEGINNING. 

the  mediaeval  Paracelsus,)  having  power  both  to  sway  the 
forces  of  the  material  world  and  to  interpret  their  deliver- 
ances. And  what  natural  magic  was  to  the  Pythagoreans, 
that  Plato's  "  reminiscences  "  were  to  him,  and,  to  Socrates, 
his  Daemon. 

XXVI 

But  about  this  mysticism  there  is  the  lambent  flame  of  a 

fire  which  will  finally  consume  its  elaborate  structures.     In 

Beginnings  ^he  Orphic  and  kindred  movements  tremble  the 

of  a  Reac-  nasccnt  impulses  of  a  Titanic  revolution.     The 

Titanism   forces  whicli  are  first  manifested  in  the  modifi- 

of  Art.  cation  of  the  sacred  Mysteries  will  move  on  to 
their  destruction,  and  also — after  the  brilliant  efflorescence 
of  Hellenic  heroism,  art  and  philosophy  —  to  their  own 
annihilation. 

It  would  seem  as  if  Apollo — hitherto,  on  all  heavenly 
fields  of  conflict,  the  champion  of  the  Olympians  against 
the  Titans  —  had  left  his  ancient  shrine,  only  to  lead  this 
new  and  mighty  rebellion  against  all  shrines. 

The  Dorians  have  brought  with  them  into  Peloponnesus 
the  song  and  dance  associated  with  their  worship  of  Apollo, 
and  have  transferred  it  to  the  Dionysian  festival,  institut- 
ing the  Chorus.  But  in  time  the  monotonous  chorus  be- 
comes tiresome,  and  a  diversion  is  introduced  by  Thespis. 

It  is  the  Homeric  influence  —  representing  a  distinctively 
human  impulse  —  which  is  the  source  of  this  diversion. 
This  Thespis,  the  first  histrionic  artist  of  Greece,  while  he 
is  a  Dionysian  evangelist,  whose  part  it  is,  on  his  extempo- 
rised stage,  to  tell  the  story  of  the  saviour  god,  is  also  a 
Rhapsodist.  It  is  but  a  step  from  his  recital  of  a  divine 
legend  to  the  fully  developed  drama  of  an  ^schylus,  in 
which  the  interest  is  shifted  toward  a  human  centre. 


THE  TITAN  ISM  OF  ART.  47 

All  this  progress  is  within  the  walls  of  the  old  temple. 
The  altar  is  still  there ;  still  are  the  sacrifices  offered ;  and 
the  Chorus  keeps  up  its  accustomed  dance  about  the  altar, 
with  strophe  and  antistrophe,  but  its  song  is  in  sympathy 
with  the  Titanic  Prometheus,  and  the  Dialogue  carried  on 
by  the  actors  little  concerns  itself  with  the  old  sacred  story. 
The  heroic  impulse,  with  a  wholly  human  interest,  is  becom- 
ing dominant.  First  it  looks  back  to  its  remote  source. 
Burning  Troy  is  ever  in  the  background  of  the  Grecian 
stage.  yEschylus  confesses  that  his  plays  are  only  frag- 
ments from  the  splendid  banquet  of  Homer.  But  a  more 
recent  source  of  heroic  pride  is  soon  found  in  the  victories 
won  by  the  Greeks  against  the  Persians,  and  thus  has  en- 
tered a  new  meaning  into  the  older  strain  of  triumph.  It 
is  the  glory  of  simple  heroism  —  as  proud  of  the  annihila- 
tion of  its  own  forces  at  Thermopylae  as  of  the  annihilation 
of  the  enemy  at  Salamis  —  and  not  that  of  a  people  ambi- 
tious for  empire.  No  legion  of  a  Caesar  was  ever  impelled 
by  the  spirit  which  mastered  the  Grecian  youth  when  they 
marched  forth  with  curled  and  perfumed  locks  to  meet  the 
mercenaries  of  Xerxes. 

The  perfection  of  Grecian  Art  in  architecture  and  sculp- 
ture was  also  through  the  imagination,  impelled  by  this 
same  heroic  impulse.  But  the  temples  and  statues  wrought 
by  Phidias  and  his  contemporaries  were  devoted  mainly  not 
to  the  divinities  presiding  over  the  Mysteries,  but  to  those 
associated  with  the  political  religion — to  Olympian  Jove, 
Apollo,  and  Mars,  and  Pallas  Athene,  and  to  heroes  like 
Theseus,  the  Hellenic  Arthur. 

The  martial  inspiration  is  not  in  sympathy  with  that 
drawn  from  Nature,  though  in  the  end  it  fulfils  a  divine 
purpose.  That  this  discord  was  apparent  to  the  Hellenic 
mind  is  shown  in  the  legend  of  the  marriage  of  Venus  with 
Vulcan,  the  latter  of  whom,  in  this  fable,  represents  Nature. 


48  FROM    THE   BEGINNING. 

It  was  a  forced  marriage,  and  the  affections  of  the  goddess 
are  easily  diverted  from  her  hmping  consort  to  the  more 
beautiful  Mars.  In  like  manner  is  the  human  soul,  under 
heroic  leadership,  easily  lured  from  what  seems  a  com- 
pulsory bond  holding  her  to  Nature,  whom  she  regards  as 
an  unworthy  spouse.  But  sooner  or  later  the  despised  Vul- 
can draws  his  brilliant  rival  within  his  all-embracing  toils. 

Though  the  brightest  and  noblest  guise  of  a  fallen  soul, 
this  heroism  is  an  already  dimmed  glory,  which  must  soon 
be  laid  aside  along  with  its  stained  and  tarnished  armor. 
As  the  sword  rusts,  so  fails  the  hand  which  is  strong  for 
strife  alone.  In  the  flaming  ardor  of  Hellenic  heroism, 
there  is  not  the  strenuous  grasp,  the  hard,  unyielding  firm- 
ness of  the  gladiatorial  Roman ;  and  it  is  therefore  that  in 
its  train  follow  Homer  and  Pindar  and  the  great  dramatists, 
and  Phidias  and  Praxiteles  —  a  pomp  of  Beauty  and  of  Song 
such  as  the  world  has  not  since  seen.  But  the  ardor  con- 
sumes Itself,  and  all  its  radiant  following  vanishes  in  the 
strife  which  called  it  forth.  The  gentler  spirits  waver; 
the  Nymphs  retire  to  their  woods  and  streams ;  and  Pan, 
who  for  a  moment  is  heard  to  sing  the  odes  of  Pindar,  is 
frightened  by  the  echoes  and  retreats  to  his  native  wilds. 

The  Hellenic  victories  over  Persian  invaders  are  soon 
followed  by  a  long  and  demoralising  civil  war,  and  finally 
the  pride  and  glory  of  Greece  are  trampled  under  the  feet 
of  the  Macedonian  conqueror. 

XXVII 

The  poet  and  the  scholar  hnger  long  beside  the  mon- 
uments of  this  glorious  period  of  Hellenic  civilisation. 
The  Hellenic  type  of  man,  at  its  best,  has  much  to  re- 
mind us  of  its  Asian  prototype.  It  had  a  finer  develop- 
ment than  in  the  civilisation  of  India  that  prototype  ever 


THE    M/EAKNESS    OF  Cli^IUSATION.  49 

reached.     If  the  simplicity  of  the  early  Aryan  faith  could 

have  been  retained,  there  would  have  been  shown  on  the 

shores  and  among  the  islands  of  the  ^gean  as 

wondrous  an  example  of  spiritual  as  we  now  be-  institutional 

hold  of  aesthetic  and  intellectual  development.        Develop- 
ment. 
But  civilisation  is  the  touchstone  of  humanity, 

and  especially  of  humanity  in  its  associative  activity.  The 
moment  institutional  life  is  inaugurated,  the  peril  is  immi- 
nent. It  is  not  that  civihsation  is  begun  in  ignorance,  as 
we  commonly  understand  ignorance,  Reading  and  writing 
are  unnatural.  Homer  was  illiterate,  but,  in  an  important 
sense,  he  was  the  greatest  educator  of  Greece.  It  is  the 
lack  of  divine  wisdom,  when  men  have  given  up  the  divine 
fellowship,  that  is  to  be  deplored.  It  is  through  the  oper- 
ation of  self-will — of  man's  will  divorced  from  the  will  of 
the  Father — that  civilisation  is  the  revelation  of  human 
frailty;  and  it  is  in  what  seems  most  fixed  and  stable — in 
what  are  apparently  the  strongest  structures  of  man's  crea- 
tion— that  this  weakness  lurks.  To  one  looking  back  upon 
the  history  of  any  people,  this  is  manifest ;  but  they  who 
build  the  monuments  of  human  pride  are  blind  to  this 
weakness.  Blessed  is  the  people  which,  generation  after 
generation,  has  a  school  of  prophets  to  break  up  these 
structures  and  to  call  men  back  with  Isaiah-like  yearn- 
ings to  the  love  of  the  living  God. 

But  the  prophets  of  Greece  exercised  no  such  ministry. 
Instead  of  breaking  up  a  formal  religious  ritual,  they 
added,  as  we  have  seen,  to  its  complexity.  They  danced 
and  sang  around  the  old  altars.  By  and  by  the  ambitious 
strain  entered  into  their  song,  and  human  heroes  displaced 
the  gods  in  their  discourse ;  the  Thespian  pulpit  widened 
into  a  stage ;  the  temple  of  Dionysus  became  a  theatre ; 
and  the  divinity,  excluded  from  his  own  shrine,  retained 
his   sacred   attributes   mainly  in  his  connection  with  the 


e,o  FROM    THE   BEGINNING. 

Eleusinian  Mysteries,  Prophecy  ministered  to  the  mar- 
tial and  heroic  pride  of  Greece.  It  was  an  exaggera- 
tion of  self-will.  It  was  not  a  new  spiritual  force  breaking 
up  old  forms.  The  disintegration  of  sacred  foundations 
was,  indeed,  a  part  of  its  mission ;  but  this  process  went 
on  through  the  substitution  of  human  for  divine  construc- 
tions, from  an  aesthetic  rather  than  a  spiritual  impulse;  and 
it  was  finally  completed  through  intellectual  analysis  and 
negation. 

XXVIII 

Coincident  with  the  Titanism  of  Hellenic  Art  was  that 
of  Hellenic  Philosophy,  impelled  by  the  same  overmas- 
tering pride. 
TitanLii         During  the  century  from  the  birth  of  Plato  to 

of  Phil-    tiig  conquest  of  Alexander,  Athens  was  the  intel- 

""""^  ^'  lectual  centre  of  the  world.  To  one  passing 
from  the  Piraeus,  with  its  outlook  upon  the  ^gean,  to  the 
Acropolis,  with  its  Theseion  and  Parthenon,  and  thence 
through  the  streets  of  the  city,  the  spirit  of  Pallas  Athene 
seemed  to  brood  over  all — over  the  gay  and  busy  multi- 
tude of  the  Agora  and  over  the  impassioned  multitude  in 
the  Theatre;  over  every  marble  statue,  every  grove  and 
garden,  and  spreading  out  over  the  summer  sea. 

The  nearer  association  with  Asia  had  introduced  luxury. 
The  very  freshness  of  heroic  sensibility  gave  a  relish  to  the 
incoming  feast  of  Persian  dainties  as  well  as  to  the  endless 
round  of  exciting  pleasures  and  amusements.  Here  was  no 
languor,  no  dull  apathy ;  life  was  yet  young  and  generous, 
quickly  appreciative  of  beauty  and  keenly  alive  to  the 
allurements  of  the  festival,  the  rhapsody  and  the  drama. 
It  was  holiday  with  Athens.  Happy  they  who  at  such 
a  time  were  enrolled  among  her  citizens !     Whether  they 


THE    SOPHISTS.  51 

were  artisans,  poets,  philosophers,  or  archons,  all  were 
glorified  by  the  common  exaltation.  Democracy  seemed 
inevitable — forced  upon  them  by  irresistible  decree. 

Hitherto  Hellenic  genius  had  coruscated  at  the  extremi- 
ties of  the  colonial  domain  —  now  gleaming  forth  from 
Smyrna  and  Ephesus  and  Miletus  in  the  East,  and  now 
from  Crotona  and  Elea  in  the  West ;  but  at  last  the  artists 
and  the  philosophers  have  found  a  home  in  Athens.  The 
approaches  of  the  philosophers  were  timid  at  first,  and 
with  good  reason,  since  Anaxagoras,  their  pioneer,  had 
been  driven  from  the  city  for  having  asserted  that  the  sun 
and  moon  were  as  unsentient  as  stones  —  so  strongly  did 
these  Athenians  still  hold  to  the  idea  of  a  divinely  animated 
universe ! 

Besides  the  arrivals  from  abroad,  there  was,  in  the  time 
of  Plato,  a  large  brood  of  native  philosophers,  calling 
themselves  Sophists.  Up  to  this  time  philosophy  had 
been  limited  to  physical  inquiry — not  an  investigation 
of  phenomena  with  reference  to  laws,  but  a  mystical 
guessing  at  the  hidden  cause  of  things.  The  Ionic  school 
had  resolved  all  into  the  four  elements;  the  Pythagore- 
ans had  introduced  a  less  material  principle  in  their  the- 
ory of  Numbers;  the  Eleatics  had  reached  the  idea  of 
a  primal  Essence ;  and  Anaxagoras  had  conceived  of  a 
conscious  mind  as  the  universal  cause.  With  this  last 
conception,  the  subjective  principle  in  man  received  a 
special   exaltation. 

Then  it  was  that  Protagoras  enounced  the  proposition 
that  "  Man  is  the  measure  of  all  things."  The  Sophists, 
adopting  this  proposition,  not  only  made  man  superior  to 
material  limitations,  to  social  usages,  and  to  religious  re- 
straints; but,  in  doing  so,  ignored  man's  spiritual  nature, 
giving  his  intellect  the  supremacy. 

Notwithstanding  the  shallowness  of  this  scheme,  and  the 


52  FROM   THE    BEGINNING. 

vain  subtleties  by  which  they  supported  it,  the  Sophists 
had  a  large  following.  Teaching  the  arts  of  popularity, 
they  drew  about  them  every  aspiring  youth;  and  the 
influence  of  their  teaching  is  illustrated  in  the  career  of 
Alcibiades. 

Socrates,  having  carefully  measured  the  influence  of  the 
Sophists,  and  calculated  its  danger  to  the  individual  and 
the  state,  yet  never  directly  opposing  them,  though  con- 
stantly entangling  them  in  the  meshes  of  their  own  logic 
and  making  them  wonder  at  their  capacity  for  every  Pro- 
tean transformation  of  falsehood,  insensibly  drew  away 
their  youthful  adherents,  in  whom  he  awakened  a  whole- 
some self-knowledge  —  using  the  same  method  which  the 
Sophists  had  abused,  and  endeavoring  through  philosophy 
to  restore  the  Will  and  Sensibility  to  their  natural  sover- 
eignty. His  disciples,  Plato  and  Aristotle,  followed  in  the 
same  direction;  the  latter  giving  to  science  a  rational 
method;  the  former  building  up  an  ideal  system  of  the 
universe,  which,  as  an  intellectual  scheme  of  a  purely  spec- 
ulative character,  has  no  rival  in  ancient  philosophy ;  while 
at  the  same  time  he  reached  a  height  of  spiritual  contem- 
plation never  attained  by  any  other  Pagan  writer. 

But  it  was  not  in  the  power  of  philosophy,  even  under 
such  leadership,  to  arrest  the  movement  which  was  under- 
mining the  structures  of  Grecian  faith  and  life;  it  rather 
accelerated  the  movement.  At  the  very  time  when  Pro- 
tagoras was  expelled  from  Athens  for  questioning  the  exist- 
ence of  the  gods,  and  when  Socrates  was  compelled  to 
drink  the  hemlock  for  his  supposed  impiety,  the  system  of 
faith  was  tottering  under  its  own  weight,  and  was  being 
betrayed  by  its  sensuous  alliances;  and,  before  another 
century  had  passed,  criticism  had  reduced  mythology 
to  a  simple  explanation  of  natural  phenomena.  Scepti- 
cism, moreover,   easily   overthrew  the  logical   pillars   by 


THE    SACRED    MYSTERIES.  53 

which  the  higher  nature  of  man  had  been  bolstered  up  in 
the  Socratic  philosophy. 

Already  the  Peloponnesian  Avar,  with  its  constantly  re- 
curring irritations,  had  blunted  the  sensibility  of  the  pre- 
ceding age.  To  this  had  been  added  the  corruptions  of 
a  perverted  democracy,  preparing  the  way  for  complete 
political  extinction. 

Whatever  had  been  the  tendencies  of  Art  and  Philoso- 
phy, in  their  relation  to  faith,  toward  the  final  ruin,  they 
were  a  part  of  the  accomplishment  of  the  divine  pur- 
pose. There  is  a  divinity  in  the  decay  of  the  old  as  in  the 
birth  of  the  new.  In  any  adequate  view  of  the  great  cycle, 
of  which  particular  national  growths  are  but  parts,  we 
see  what  even  the  rust  of  Time  is  worth,  and  that  the  corro- 
siveness  of  human  thought,  when  it  gets  the  better  of 
action,  doing  away  with  the  sjanbols  of  a  halting  and 
decrepid  hfe,  is  quite  as  natural  and  necessary  as  is  the 
utter  decay  of  the  fallen  forest  leaves  through  the  action 
of  the  very  force  which  gave  them  their  springtime  verdure. 

XXIX 

But  what  are  the  Sacred  Mysteries — which  were  the 
expression  of  the  deeper  religious  sentiment  of  the  Grecian 
people,  the  undercurrent  of  all  the  movements 

The    Popu- 

we  have  been  considering  ?  lar  Faith 


We  have  now  to  turn  quite  entirely  away  from 


expressed 
in  the 

Olympus,  which  is  so  conspicuous  in  the  poetry     Sacred 
and  cultivated  thought  of  the  Hellenic  world.  ystenes. 

What  a  bridgeless  chasm  separates  the  spiritual  from  the 
merely  intellectual  comprehension  of  God !  The  one  re- 
gards Love,  the  other  only  Force.  The  one  is  as  near  as 
the  sun,  the  other  as  remote  and  cold  and  alien  as  the 
stars.     Such  a  gulf  separated  the  gods  of  Olympus  from 


54  FROM   THE   BEGINNING. 

the  saviour  gods — the  divmities  of  Pagan  intellect  from 
those  of  Pagan  sentiment.  Each  of  the  Olympians  was 
doubtless,  at  first,  a  saviour — the  response  to  the  yearn- 
ings of  a  spiritual  faith.  But  in  historic  times  they  are, 
nearly  all  of  them,  as  far  removed  from  the  sentiment  which 
first  conceived  them  as  are  the  constellations  of  heaven 
from  human  sympathy.  They  retain  only  their  power,  a 
power  still  associated  with  the  operations  of  nature,  benefi- 
cent or  destructive,  but  alien  as  Destiny.  They  determine 
all  things  and  behold  all,  but  have  no  care. 

Still  the  sentiment  remains.  It  is  no  longer  accompanied 
by  the  sense  of  intimate  fellowship;  there  has  been  a  growth 
of  the  fear  which  hath  torment;  but  alongside  with  this 
fear  has  arisen  hope  also  ;  and,  therefore,  this  sentiment  is 
a  longing  for  the  nearness  of  a  divinity  bringing  help  and 
comfort — a  longing  which  finds  its  response  in  loving  and 
saving  Powers,  which,  while  they  may  not  alter  the  decrees 
of  Fate,  yet  interpose  between  humanity  and  those  far- 
away gods  that  are  "  careless  of  mankind."  These  saving 
Powers  are  the  gods  of  the  Sacred  Mysteries.  They  are 
not  new  divinities — their  distinction  is  that  they  retain 
their  old  vitality  in  the  human  heart,  their  near  relarion  to 
its  joys  and  sorrows,  its  hopes  and  fears. 

The  Olympians  have  lost  this  vitality.  They  are  the 
gods  of  peoples  that  are  restless  and  migratory,  and  they 
reflect  the  character  of  their  ever-shifting  worshippers. 
Olympus  is  not  their  home,  but  only  a  habitation  assigned 
them  by  the  poets,  who  are  as  free  in  the  legendary  hand- 
ling of  them  as  Aristophanes  is  in  making  them  the  sub- 
jects of  his  travesties.  The  fact  that  this  free  treatment 
of  them  was  tolerated  is  an  illustration  of  their  religious 
insignificance. 

The  Promethean  legend,  as  developed  by  ^schylus,  is 
the   natural   counterpart  to  the   Hellenic  conception  of 


PAGANISM   A    LIFE.  55 

Olympian  sovereignty  —  a  supremacy  of  force  not  free  from 
guile.  It  is  characteristic  at  once  of  the  insincerity  and 
intellectual  pride  of  this  Hellenic  race,  that  it  should  first 
conceive  the  divine  dynasty  after  this  manner, —  as  jealous 
of  the  race  of  men  and  plotting  its  destruction, —  and,  then, 
that  the  salvation  of  mankind  should  seem  possible  only  by 
the  interposition  of  an  intelligence  capable  of  outwitting 
the  supreme  arbiters  of  destiny.  Certainly  no  spiritual 
meaning  could  be  attached  to  such  a  deliverance. 

But,  whatever  the  poets  may  have  feigned,  or  whatever 
philosophers  may  have  hoped,  touching  the  possible  re- 
demption of  man  through  intellectual  progress  and  the  arts 
of  civilisation,  the  hearts  of  the  people,  seeking  some  better 
assurance,  turned  away  both  from  the  relentless  Olympian 
dynasty  and  the  scheme  of  intellectual  salvation,  to  the 
gods  of  their  living  faith,  who  in  all  times  of  tribulation,  in 
the  hour  of  death,  and  in  the  day  of  judgment,  would 
surely  deliver  them.  Even  Socrates,  who  was  never  ini- 
tiated into  the  Mysteries,  before  his  death  sacrificed  to 
.^sculapius. 

XXX 

For  Paganism  was  not  a  theory,  but  a  life.     In  its  first 
estate,  it  was,  as  we  have  seen,  a  life  of  intimate  com- 
munion with  God  through  Nature.     There  was 
no  concern  as  to  the  ultimate  purposes  either  of      Reality 
Nature  or  of  human  existence  ;  so  that  man  held    of  Pagan 

....  Faith. 

closely  to  the  divme  life,  walking  in  living  ways, 
this  life  would  take  care  of  its  own  issues.  The  Earth 
beneath  him  and  the  Sun  above  were  the  two  great  Pres- 
ences, representing  the  compassionate  Motherhood  and  the 
brooding  Fatherhood  of  God.  Whatever  lay  beyond  this 
charmed  circle  could  be  interpreted  only  by  that  which 


56  FROM   THE   BEGINNING. 

therein  germinated  and  blossomed  and  ripened  in  the  throb- 
bing, palpitating  warmth  of  divine  love.  Night,  Winter  and 
Death  were  but  like  the  gulf  of  sleep,  over  which  one 
passes  restfuUy  from  Eve  to  Dawn.  There  were  no  mental 
questionings  to  be  answered.  The  nearness,  the  fulness, 
and  the  endless  renewal  of  life  were  the  basis  of  spiritual 
satisfaction. 

When  this  divine  drama  —  the  direct  manifestation  of 
God  through  the  Eternal  Word  —  is  no  longer  satisfactory, 
and,  together  with  the  establishment  of  the  priestly  order, 
the  mystical  drama  of  the  Mysteries  is  developed,  we  find 
in  the  impersonations  of  the  latter,  in  its  symbols,  and  in 
its  humanly  shaped  ritual,  a  limited  and  formal  representa- 
tion of  the  truths  which  had  most  profoundly  impressed 
man's  spiritual  nature,  when,  in  the  simplicity  of  his  faith, 
he  was  the  witness  of  the  larger,  divinely  shaped  drama, — 
nay  more,  a  direct  participant  in  its  open  and  joyous  cele- 
bration. The  nearness  and  intimacy  of  the  divine  life  were 
represented  in  the  two  principal  divine  personages  of  the 
Mysteries,  Demeter  and  Dionysus,  who  stood  for  the  two 
great  Presences,  the  Earth  and  the  Sun.  These  personifi- 
cations preceded  any  legend,  or  any  mystical  drama  figur- 
ing it  forth ;  they  grew  out  of  a  deep  feeling  which  found 
no  adequate  expression  short  of  this  most  tender  embodi- 
ment of  these  divine  Presences  in  human  shapes,  bringing 
them  in  this  way  still  nearer  to  human  hearts,  even  as  their 
new  names  were  more  familiarly  and  lovingly  taken  upon 
human  lips. 

So,  too,  it  was  with  Persephone,  who  was  necessary  to 
the  completeness  of  the  vital  reality  in  the  human  heart 
and  imagination.  In  all  Nature  there  are  never  two  but 
there  is  a  third,  the  Begotten.  As  in  Egypt  the  popular 
faith  included  the  Three  —  Isis,  Osiris  and  Horus — so  in 
Greece  there  are  Demeter,  Dionysus  and  Persephone.    But 


THE    ELEUSINIAN   GOSPEL.  57 

in  relation  to  faith,  this  daughter  of  Demeter  is  mainly 
significant  not  as  representing  birth  but  repeated  birth,  as 
being  Lost  and  Found.  The  solicitude  of  the  ages  is 
expressed  in  the  old  question.  If  a  man  die  shall  he  live 
again  ?  The  restoration  of  Persephone  to  the  light  from 
the  darkness  of  Hades  was  an  answer  to  this  question,  in 
so  far  as  an  answer  could  be  given  by  the  hope-impelled 
and  divinely  led  imagination  —  an  assurance  that  death  is 
no  more  the  end  of  life  than  is  winter  the  end  of  the 
flowers  that  rest  under  its  snows. 

Thus  far  —  in  these  impersonations,  and  in  the  story  of 
Persephone's  seizure  by  Pluto  and  her  restoration  by  heav- 
enly powers,  which  is  the  fundamental  gospel  of  the  Eleu- 
sinian  Mysteries  —  there  is  no  departure  from  the  simplicity 
of  a  primitive  faith,  but  rather  a  deepening  thereof,  and  a 
fuller  fruition.  It  was  still  a  living  faith,  quickened  by  the 
Spirit,  and  led  by  the  Everlasting  Word,  whose  manifesta- 
tion of  the  Father  in  the  human  heart  meets  and  accords 
with  all  natural  unfoldings. 

XXXI 

Nor,  when  we  proceed  a  step  farther,  to  the  establish- 
ment of  a  priesthood  and  of  sacramental  symbolism,  is 
the  failure  in  the  existence  of  the  priest  or  of  the 
sacrament;  nor  is  it  in  the  fact  that  there  is  a  c-  '^^^  ■ 

bystematic 

systematic  development  of  faith.  Development 

There  is  no  development  without  system  either  inevEbL 
of  Nature  or  of  Humanity.  We  can  mentally  con- 
ceive of  a  life  ethereally  unmanifest,  without  embodiments 
of  any  sort ;  and  possibly  there  is,  at  the  conclusion  of  great 
cycles  of  existence,  a  general  disembodiment,  a  shuffling  off" 
of  all  mortal  coils,  a  fusion  in  unseen  flame  of  spirits  pure 
and  breathless.     But  this  is  not  the  life  we  know,  which  is 


58  FROM   THE   BEGINNING. 

revealed  through  veihngs ;  whose  currents  are  manifest  only 
as  they  are  resisted  or  interrupted ;  which  has  colorations 
and  discolorations,  tempers  and  distempers  — the  varia- 
tions of  its  flame ;  which  has  limitations  and  narrownesses, 
even  divinity  being  diversified,  and  the  infinite  seen  only 
in  littles ;  which  has  mortal  frailty,  divinely  purposed  and 
having  no  more  connection  with  sin  than  has  the  frailty 
of  the  wholesome  weariness  that  induceth  sleep ;  and  this 
life  inhabits  the  crusts  of  worlds  hardened  in  the  cooling, 
whose   fountains  rise  out   of  the  fissures   of  rocks,    and 
whose  treasures  are  hidden  in  fastnesses.     It  is  known  to 
us  as  a  life  which  has  hardnesses  and  shocks  and  fric- 
tions ;  which  has  skeleton  and  framework  as  well  as  blood 
and  nerve ;  which  has  actions  and  reactions,  mechanical  as 
well  as  chemical ;  which  has  measures  and  compensations 
and  co-ordinations  and  times  and  seasons,  and  whose  grav- 
ities reveal  its  subtle  attractions.     This  is  the  life  which 
God  has  Himself  ordained,  a  life  organic  and  structural, 
which  has  system,  nay,  a  series  of  systems  not  only  con- 
sistent in  space  but  successive  in  time.     That  which  we  call 
the  frailty  of  a  system,  whereby  it  dies,  is,  when  seen  with 
reference  to  that  which  follows,  no  frailty,  but  a  transit 
from  strength  unto  strength.     When  we  shall  see  the  fine 
gold  which  has  been  tried  in  furnace  after  furnace,  then 
that  which  we  are  wont  to  call  the  golden  age  will  seem 
but  a  rude  splendor.     The  first  shall  be  last,  and  the  last 
shall  be  first.     What  we  call  lapses  —  so  they  be  indeed 
mortal  lapses  —  are,  on  their  divine  side,  ascents.     As  to 
Eden,  the  divine  solicitude  was  chiefly  lest  our  first  parents 
should  eat  of  the  fruit  of  the  Tree  of  Life  and  be  denied 
euthanasy.     In  the  prophetic  vision  what  glorious  lapses: 
from  the  frail  innocence  of  Eden  to  the  frailer  simplicities 
of  the  patriarchal  times,  and  from  these,  through  the  still 
frailer  shapes  of  beauty  and  strength  evoked  by  the  aspira- 


THE    QUICKNESS    OF  DEATH.  59 

tions  of  the  Heroic  Age,  to  the  complex  structures  of  civiU- 
sation, —  frailest  of  all, —  and  thence  to  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  in  its  earthly  realisation  —  in  which  Frailty  and 
Death  are  for  the  first  time  glorified,  being  known  for  what 
they  truly  are  in  the  economy  of  God. 

The  more  of  divine  life  there  is  in  a  system,  as  a  life  whose 
mastery  is  accepted  and  which  shapes  all  human  operations 
in  its  development,  the  more  readily  that  system  passes, 
giving  place  to  new.  It  has  the  quickness  of  death  as  of 
life.  The  real  degeneration  is  the  withdrawal  from  the 
divine  living  ways  • —  which  are  also  the  ways  of  upward 
flowing  change  through  the  quick  death  —  and  the  tena- 
cious conservation  of  a  system  thus  withdrawn,  which  has 
neither  the  quickness  of  life  nor  of  death,  and  is,  therefore, 
spiritually  dead.  In  the  divine  plan  the  material  structure 
is  secondary;  the  hardnesses  are  hidden — even  as  the  crust 
of  the  earth  has  not  only  beneath  it  pent-up  fires  but  above 
it  the  flaming  luxuriance  of  the  sun-begotten  life.  In  the 
degenerate  humanly  shaped  scheme,  cut  off"  from  the  divine 
life, —  even  though  it  be  called  sacred  thereunto,  being 
really  set  apart  therefrom, —  it  is  the  structure  which  is 
primary ;  the  mechanical  processes  obscure,  even  though 
they  may  not  entirely  hide,  the  heavenly  alchemy  ;  the  veil 
is  never  hfted,  and  it  can  be  rent  in  twain  only  by  a 
divine  violence,  in  that  same  hour  that  the  all-suftering 
Eternal  Word,  forever  illustrating  the  divinity  of  death, 
proclaims  concerning  this  spiritually  dead  system  that  "  it 
is  finished." 

The  degeneration  of  the  reUgious  system  embodied  in 
the  Sacred  Mysteries  of  Egypt  and  of  Greece  is  shown  in 
its  withdrawal  from  the  living  ways  of  faith,  in  the  media- 
tive  offices  of  the  priestly  order,  and  in  the  prominence 
given  to  sacramental  symbols  which  had  taken  the  place 
of  the  living  symbols  of  the  Word. 


6o  FROM   THE   BEGINNING. 

The  mystical  drama  of  the  Mysteries,  while  retaining 
the  old  nature-symbols,  is  itself  far  withdrawn  from  Nature 
as  a  direct  expression  of  the  divine  Hfe.  Rehgion  is  divorced 
not  only  from  the  spiritual  intimacies  of  Nature  but  also 
from  life ;  it  is  closely  confined  to  a  sacred  enclosure,  and 
its  symbols  are  held  sacred  in  the  sense  of  being  "  set 
apart."  We  pass  from  Moses  by  the  burning  bush  to  the 
sons  of  Levi  guarding  a  tabernacle. 

XXXII 

This  religious  tendency  cannot  be  considered  wholly 
by  itself,  since  it  only  follows  the  tendency  of  all  civilisa- 
tion, in  all  ages,  to  build  upon  human  rather 
T^l^dency  than  upou  diviuc  foundations, 
ofaiiciviii-  It  is  not  a  conscious  departure  deliberately 
taken.  It  is  an  essential  feature  of  the  degener- 
ation that  every  such  departure  is  taken  as  if  in  obedience 
to  a  divine  dictate.  All  deliberate  crime,  however  hei- 
nous, is  but  the  incidental  exaggeration  of  a  system  which 
has  gone  wrong  —  gradually,  by  steps  taken  consciously, 
indeed,  as  involving  choice,  but  unconsciously  as  to  their 
full  meaning  and  consequences.  It  is  not  necessary  to  the 
conception  of  sin  that  it  be  conscious  of  itself  as  sinful  — 
it  is  the  Self- Will  in  it,  the  exclusion  of  the  divine  life,  that 
gives  it  its  character.  In  many  ways  this  Self-Will  may 
enter  into  an  individual  human  life,  excluding  the  divine — 
as,  for  example,  in  a  career  of  incessant  activity,  impelled 
by  a  sense  of  duty,  but  nevertheless  a  sinful  career,  not  only 
as  a  dissipation  of  energy  but  in  that  it  has  rejected  "the 
better  part " ;  and,  while  a  lifetime  is  in  many  respects  an 
education  as  to  its  mistakes,  yet  it  may  pass  without  the 
disclosure  in  consciousness  of  so  grave  an  error.  To 
exclude    the   divine   life   is    also    to   exclude    the    divine 


THE   DELUSION   OF  ENTHUSIASM.  6i 

wisdom,  which  is  the  only  sure  guide — so  that  error 
involves  a  loss  of  the  vision  that  would  disclose  it.  There 
is  conscious,  deliberate  wandering;  but  even  the  outright 
defiances  of  God  count  for  little,  as  to  their  general  conse- 
quences, in  comparison  with  those  departures  from  Him 
which  are  called  seekings,  or  those  grave  errors  which 
inaugurate  and  maintain  systematic  perversions  of  truth  in 
the  guise  of  its  service. 

There  is  an  especial  blindness  in  the  perversion  which 
has  its  spring  in  a  strong  impulse — an  impulse  divine  at 
its  source,  but  wrested  from  the  living  way  by  the  mastery 
of  Self- Will.  The  after  yielding  and  drifting — like  the  sins 
of  mature  age,  when  both  impulse  and  temptation  are 
weak,  but  habit  is  persistent  —  are  more  conscious ;  but 
with  the  sense  of  error  is  mingled  that  of  helplessness  as 
against  the  momentum  of  a  system  already  grown  invet- 
erate. But  in  the  beginning,  the  delusion  is  the  madness 
of  a  wayward  torrent,  confusing  the  spiritual  sensibility  by 
the  very  urgency  of  its  force,  which,  whithersoever  it  drives, 
seems  to  be  divine.  It  is  the  delusion  of  all  enthusiasm 
— inherent  in  the  word  itself.  We  say,  and  we  say  truly, 
that  in  all  energy  there  is  the  divinity,  but  we  lose  sight  of 
the  fact  that  the  human  will,  instead  of  submitting  to  the 
divine,  is  attempting  to  take  it  in  hand  by  a  sort  of  mas- 
tery, limiting,  denying,  betraying  and  crucifying  it. 

However  we  may  account  for  it  (and  here  all  specula- 
tion is  vain)  this  delusion  is  universal,  pertaining  it  may 
be  to  all  worlds,  certainly  entering  into  every  stage  of 
human  development,  and  especially  apparent  when  that 
development  takes  the  form  of  institutional  life. 

It  is  quite  impossible  for  us  in  this  age  to  fully  compre- 
hend the  exaltation  of  the  first  founders  of  institutions  in 
ancient  times — of  a  Moses,  an  Aaron,  an  Eumolpus,  of  a 
Solon  or  a  Lycurgus.     All  these  claimed  and  were  credited 


62  FROM  THE  BEGINNING. 

with  divine  inspiration.  In  all  countries  a  divine  prestige 
was  given  to  the  priesthood  as  well  as  to  the  rituals,  which, 
in  moments  of  prophetic  enthusiasm,  it  inspired.  In  the 
very  initiation  of  a  vast  error  is  the  throbbing  impulse  of 
the  divine  heart;  and  this  impulse  will  remain  in  every 
step  of  man's  departure  from  the  simplicity  and  purity  of 
faith;  so  that  alongside  of  the  perversion  we  shall  note 
the  deep  insistence  with  which  the  Eternal  Word,  imma- 
nent in  even  the  darkened  human  heart,  gives  a  divine 
shaping  to  the  conceptions  of  the  multitude  and  the 
promptings    of  its    leaders. 

Just  as  we  would  make  a  grave  mistake  in  overlooking 
the  fact  of  degeneration  and  the  limitations  of  divine  life 
and  truth,  we  would  make  a  graver  mistake  in  supposing 
that  God  has  ever  abandoned  His  wayward  children 
because  of  their  wanderings  and  delusions.  There  is  a 
departure  from  the  full  divine  fellowship,  and  the  institu- 
tion of  caste  shows  that  with  this  departure  has  come  the 
loss  of  equal  brotherly  love.  Yet  has  the  Word  free  course. 
There  is  an  unnatural  solemnity  in  the  feasts  and  proces- 
sions and  initiations,  a  loving  of  darkness  rather  than  light 
in  the  oath-bound  secrecy;  and  there  is  established  in 
men's  hearts  a  kingdom  of  fear,  extending  beyond  the  grave 
and  throwing  its  shadow  back  upon  all  earthly  life — yet 
in  and  through  all  this  is  present  the  free  Spirit  of  the  All- 
loving  Father,  and  the  leadership  unto  hope  and  salvation 
of  the  Eternal  Son. 

Nor  alone  unto  the  celebrants  of  these  Mysteries  is  there 
this  hope.  It  may  well  be  that  among  the  uninitiated  there 
are  many  who,  like  Socrates,  are  nearer  than  these  to  the 
living  ways,  even  though  they  may  be  iconoclasts  and 
reject  the  priestly  mediation — nearer,  not  because  of  their 
superior  intelhgence,  but  through  their  readier  reception  of 
the  divine  life  and  their  submission  unto  its  mastery. 


THE   ELEUSINIAN   INITIATION.  6} 


XXXIII 

The  Eleusinian  Mysteries  may  be  regarded  as  adequately 
representing  the  dramatic  expression  of  all  ancient  popu- 
lar faith. 

There  are  the  Minor  Mysteries,  celebrated  every  year 
at  Agrae,  where  is  the  first  initiation — the  muesis,  or  closing 
of  the  eyes — typifying  a  withdrawal  from  the 
visible  world,  as  a  preparation  for  the  revelation       The 

Eleusinian 

which  is  to  be  vouchsafed  at  the  Major  Mys-    Mysteries, 
teries,  celebrated  in  the  Autumn  of  every  year, 
at  Eleusis.     Those  who  have  received  the  first  initiation 
are  called  Mjs/ce,  and  those  who  have  received  the  second 
become  Epoptce,  or  seers. 

Nine  days  are  devoted  to  the  celebration  of  the  Major 
Mysteries,  the  first  five  of  which  are  spent  at  Athens  in  the 
gathering  together  of  the  Mystce  and  their  preparation 
through  purification,  fasting  and  sacrifice.  On  the  fourth 
day  at  Athens  there  is  the  Procession  of  the  Basket,  in 
which  a  basket  containing  poppies  and  pomegranates  is 
carried  on  a  wagon  drawn  by  oxen,  and  followed  by  women, 
bearing  in  their  hands  small  mystical  cases  holding  the 
sacred  symbols  of  Demeter.  On  the  evening  of  the  fifth 
day,  the  Afystcz  join  in  a  torch-light  procession  to  the 
temple  of  Demeter  at  Eleusis.  The  sixth  day — the  most 
solemn  day  of  the  festival — is  devoted  to  the  grand  pro- 
cession in  which  the  statue  of  lacchus,  the  son  of  Demeter, 
crowned  with  myrde,  is  borne  from  Athens  through  the 
Sacred  Gate,  along  the  Sacred  Way,  (sacred  from  Eleu- 
sinian association,)  and  finally  through  the  "  Mystical 
Entrance  "  into  Eleusis.  During  the  following  night  the 
Mystce  receive  the  final  initiation.  Crowned  with  myrtle 
they  enter  the  sacred  enclosure  of  the  temple,  having  first 


64  FROM   THE   BEGINNING. 

washed  their  hands  with  holy  water.  Then  they  are  led 
into  the  presence  of  the  Hierophant,  who  reads  to  them 
from  stone  tablets,  disclosing  the  secret  mysteries.  Then 
their  eyes  are  opened ;  and  it  is  said  that  Demeter 
sealed  with  her  own  peculiar  signals — by  vivid  corus- 
cations of  hght  —  the  revelation  already  made  by  the 
Hierophant ;  after  which  a  wonderfully  serene  light  filled 
the  temple,  and  the  pure  fields  of  Elysium  were  unveiled 
to  the  EpoptcE,  whose  ears  were  greeted  by  the  songs  of 
celestial  choirs.  On  the  seventh  day  the  great  proces- 
sion returned  to  Athens;  the  eighth  was  devoted  to 
yEsculapius  —  the  divine  physician ;  and  on  the  ninth 
was  performed  the  concluding  ceremony  of  libation  from 
two  jars,  one  emptied  toward  the  East  and  the  other 
toward  the  West. 

XXXIV 

Who  is  this  Demeter  that  presides  over  these  Mysteries, 
and  of  whose  grief  it  is  that  they  are  commemorative  ? 

The  legend  is  that  her  daughter  Persephone,  gathering 

flowers  in  Enna,  in  Sicily,  was  seized  by  Pluto  and  carried 

to  the  underworld;  that  the  sorrowing  mother 

'^TthL     wandered  over  all  the  earth,  in  a  vain  search  for 

Mystical    j.|^g  jgg^-  Qj^g  .  ^^^  \^2il,  after  a  season,  Persephone 

Drama. 

was  restored  to  her,  bearing  the  fatal  pomegran- 
ate, the  sign  that,  after  another  season,  she  must  return  to 
Hades. 

The  poppy-seeds  and  pomegranates  borne  in  the  Pro- 
cession of  the  Basket  are  indicative  of  the  Great  Mother's 
sorrow  and  of  its  everlasting  iteration.  The  torch-light 
procession  is  intended  to  represent  her  despairing  search. 
The  Procession  of  lacchus  shows  forth  her  triumph. 

Demeter  has  her  prototype  in  Isis,  who  also  had  her 


THE   GREAT  MOTHER.  65 

endlessly  repeated  sorrow  in  die  loss  of  Osiris,  and  in  con- 
nection with  whose  worship  the  Egyptians  celebrated  an 
annual  festival. 

The  worship  of  this  Great  Mother,  under  various  names, 
is  not  less  remarkable  for  its  antiquity  than  for  its  extent. 
To  the  Hindu,  she  was  the  Lady  Isani.  She  was  the 
Cybele  of  Phrygia,  the  Ceres  of  Rome,  the  Disa  of  the 
North.  According  to  Tacitus  she  was  worshipped  by  the 
ancient  Suevi.  She  had  her  rites  among  the  old  Musco- 
vites, and  representations  of  her  are  found  upon  the  sacred 
drums  of  the  Lapps.  She  swayed  the  ancient  world  from 
India  to  Scandinavia,  and  everywhere  she  was  the  Mater 
Dolorosa.  The  prominence  of  this  element  of  sorrow  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  the  sacred  name  of  Demeter,  that 
by  which  she  was  known  in  the  Mysteries,  was  Achtheia 
(Grief). 

The  inscription  upon  the  tablet  of  the  veiled  Isis — "I 
am  all  that  hath  been,  all  that  is,  all  that  is  to  be,  and  the 
veil  which  hideth  my  face  no  mortal  hand  hath  ever 
raised" — would  seem  to  include  in  her  mystery — in  this 
endless  alternation  of  sorrow  and  triumph — not  only  Na- 
ture but  humanity  and  divinity  as  well. 

She  saith:  "I  am  the  First  and  Last — the  Mother  and 
Grave  of  all.  All  generations  are  mine.  But  my  fairest 
children,  whom  I  have  brought  forth  and  nourished  in  the 
Hght,  have  been  stolen  by  the  Powers  of  Darkness.  In 
Cyprus,  as  Aphrodite,  I  wept  for  Adonis,  slain  in  the 
chase.  Thus  in  Egypt  I  mourned  for  Osiris,  for  Attys  in 
Phrygia,  and  for  Persephone  at  Eleusis — all  of  whom 
passed  to  Hades,  were  restored  for  a  season,  and  then 
retaken.  Thus  is  my  sorrow  repeated  without  end.  All 
things  are  taken  from  me.  Night  treadeth  upon  the  heels 
of  Day ;  the  desolation  of  Winter  wasteth  the  fair  fruit  of 
Summer;  and  Death  walketh  ever  in  the  ways  of  Life. 


66  FROM    THE    BEGINNING. 

But  at  the  last,  through  him,  my  first-begotten  and  my  best 
beloved,  who  also  dieth,  descendeth  into  Hades  and  riseth 
again,  I  shall  triumph  in  Eternal  Joy  !  " 

XXXV 

From  the  Nature-symbols  we  pass,  then,  to  the 
spiritual  signiiicance  of  the  Mysteries.  This  Sorrowing 
Mother  takes  our  grief,  represents  our  loss,  our 
Mean'ings   Q^^^o^,  ouv  final  dcliverance. 

of  the  The  sixth  day  of  the  Eleusinia,  when  the  ivy- 

crowned  lacchus — the  Attic  Dionysus — was 
borne  in  triumph  from  Athens  to  Eleusis,  amid  the  joyous 
acclamations  of  a  multitude  numbering  over  thirty  thou- 
sand, was  the  Palm  Sunday  of  Greece.  Close  upon  the 
chariot  wheels  of  the  saviour  god  followed,  in  the  faith  of 
the  people,  vEsculapius  and  Hercules — the  former  the 
divine  physician,  who,  as  a  child  of  the  Sun,  was  the 
restorer  of  life ;  the  latter  he  who  by  his  saving  strength 
cleansed  the  earth  of  its  Augean  impurities,  who,  arrayed 
in  celestial  armor,  subdued  the  monsters  of  the  world,  and 
who,  descending  into  Hades,  slew  the  three-headed  Cer- 
berus and  took  away  from  men  much  of  the  fear  of  death. 

Such  was  the  train  of  the  Eleusinian  Dionysus.  If 
Demeter  was  the  wanderer  and  Lady  of  Sorrow,  he  was 
the  conqueror  and  the  centre  of  all  triumph.  In  later 
times  he  was  identified  with  the  Dionysus  of  Boeotian 
Thebes,  and  invested  with  his  attributes.  Thus  the  faith 
of  the  Hellenic  Greeks  made  him  the  peaceful  conqueror 
of  the  world ;  and  the  same  idea  of  world-conqueror  was 
associated  with  the  Egyptian  Osiris. 

This  association  of  human  faith  with  the  idea  of  victory 
is  a  significant  feature  of  the  Mysteries.  We  find  it  in  all 
Dionysian  symbolism;    in  the  representations  on  sacred 


DIONYSUS  THE    LIBERATOR.  67 

vases;  and  the  tombs  of  the  ancients  from  Egypt  to 
Etruria  abound  in  monumental  tokens  and  inscriptions 
indicating  the  prominence  of  triumphant  hope. 

The  exaltation  and  enthusiasm  of  victory  in  the  worship 
of  Dionysus  tended  naturally  to  connect  him  with  whatso- 
ever is  joyous  in  life.  Hence  the  legend  which  makes  him 
the  giver  of  wine  to  men.  In  his  triumphant  progress,  he 
is  surrounded  with  the  clustering  vine  and  ivy ;  his  path 
is  through  the  richest  fields  of  Southern  Asia  —  through 
incense-breathing  Arabia,  across  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris 
and  through  the  flowery  vales  of  Cashmere,  to  India,  the 
garden  of  the  world ;  and,  as  from  sea  to  sea  he  estab- 
lishes his  reign  by  bloodless  conquests,  he  is  attended  by 
Fauns  and  Satyrs  and  all  Pan's  following ;  wine  and  honey 
are  his  gifts,  and  all  the  earth  is  glad  in  his  gracious  pres- 
ence. Hence  he  was  ever  associated  with  Oriental  luxu- 
riance, and  in  his  worship,  even  among  the  Greeks,  there 
was  a  large  infusion  of  Oriental  extravagance. 

The  Greeks  attached  a  profound  spiritual  meaning  to 
the  Eleusinia  and  to  their  worship  of  Dionysus.  Demeter 
gave  them  bread  ;  but  they  never  forgot  that  she  gave 
them  also  the  bread  of  life.  "  She  gave  us,"  saith  Isocrates, 
"two  gifts  that  are  the  most  excellent  —  fruits  that  we 
might  not  live  like  beasts,  and  that  initiation,  those  who 
have  part  in  which  have  sweeter  hope,  both  as  regards 
the  close  of  life  and  for  all  eternity."  So  Dionysus,  they 
believed,  gave  them  wine,  not  only  to  lighten  the  cares 
of  life,  but  as  the  symbol  of  his  higher  spiritual  office  as 
Liberator.  Thus,  from  the  earliest  times  and  in  all  the 
world  have  bread  and  wine  been  sacramental  symbols. 


68  FROM    THE   BEGINNING. 


XXXVI 

The  growth,  the  outward  dramatic  development,  of  any 

ritual  may  well  be  called  a  Mystery.     It  would  seem  that 

The  Law  of  ^^^'~'  ^^^^  associated  activities  of  men  united  by 

Repetition   a  commoH  faith  there  enters  some  sort  of  com- 

Deveiop-    pclling  instinct,  something  which  is  from  above 

'"^"''      and  which  draws  these  activities  by  an  unseen 

law  into  constructions  and  interpretations  of  the  highest, 

the  ultimate  truths  of  the  spiritual  world. 

Men  unite  in  some  simple,  significant  act,  significant 
from  its  relation  to  the  heart.  This  act  is  sure  to  be 
repeated. 

"  Quod  semel  dictum  est  stabilisque  rerum 
Terminus  servet." 

The  subtle  law  of  repetition  is  as  sure  in  determination  as 
it  is  in  consciousness.  Habit  is  as  inevitable  as  Memory ; 
and,  as  nothing  can  be  forgotten,  but,  being  once  known, 
is  known  forever — so  nothing  is  once  done  from  the  heart 
but  it  will  be  done  again.  Lethe  and  Annihilation  are  the 
only  utterly  empty  myths.  The  poppy  has  only  a  fabulous 
virtue,  but  that  of  the  pomegranate  is  compeUing.  While 
death  and  oblivion  only  seem  to  be,  remembrances  and 
resurrections  there  wast  be,  and  without  end.  Therefore 
it  is  that  the  significant  act  will  be  repeated ;  and  the 
repetition  will  come  to  have  periodicity,  established  inter- 
vals ;  and  about  it  will  be  gathered  all  the  associations  of 
interest  in  human  life.  At  every  successive  repetition,  at 
every  fresh  resurrection,  is  evolved  through  human  faith 
and  sympathy  a  deeper  significance,  until  the  development 
comprehends  the  deepest  thought  and  feeling  of  a  people ; 
nay  more,  there  enters  into  it  a  divine  power  and  meaning 
so  that  it  is  regarded  as  a  revelation  from  heaven. 


CHRIST  THE   CENTRE    OF  ALL    FAITH.  69 


XXXVII 

Now,  that  which  works  in  men — and  especially  in  men 
associated  together — with  this  leading,  is  the  Word,  the 
Eternal  Son.     As  he  is  first  seen  in  the  Nature- 

1  r  1  1        The  Fore- 

symbols,  so   he   leads  on   from   these,  not    only  shadowing 

until  they  disappear,  and  in  their  place  humanity     ^^^^^ 
stands  face  to  face  with  a  saviour,  but  until  in 
the  shape  of  this  saviour  his  own  incarnation  is  antici- 
pated or  prefigured. 

For  this  Dionysus  of  the  Mysteries  is  the  son  of  Zeus  by 
a  mortal  mother.  He  was  born  of  Semele  of  the  royal 
house  of  Thebes.  A  little  before  his  birth  Zeus  visited  the 
mother  in  all  the  majesty  of  his  presence,  with  thunder- 
ings  and  Hghtnings,  so  that  she,  unable  to  stand  before  the 
revealed  god,  was  consumed  by  fire.  Out  of  her  ashes 
was  perfected  the  birth  of  the  child  —  whence  he  was 
called  the  Child  of  Fire. 

The  Egyptian  followers  of  Osiris  sought  to  lose  their 
identity  in  him,  assuming  his  name  at  death,  and  in  all 
respects  desiring  to  take  his  very  semblance,  to  be  "  Such 
as  Osiris,"  that  they  might  be  known  as  his  in  the  Resur- 
rection :  even  as  the  Psalmist  saith,  "  I  shall  be  satisfied 
when  I  awake  with  thy  likeness." 

Thus  all  human  faith  has  a  single  centre — in  Christ. 
Its  shaping  from  the  beginning  was  in  "  conformity  to  the 
image  of  the  Son." 

XXXVIII 

Dionysus  and  Demeter,  like  Osiris  and  Isis,  were  Lord 
and  Lady  of  the  Underworld.  The  last  libation  of  the 
Eleusinia  was  twofold,  first  to  the  East,  and  then  to 
the  West — the  way  of  the  dead.     In  no  ancient  system 


70  FROM    THE    BEGINNING. 

of  faith  was  the  dark  and  silent  abode  of  the  dead  en- 
tirely removed  from  the  earth.  To  the  Hebrew,  as  to  the 
Babylonian,  it  was  a  place  of  exceeding  depth, 
Concf^tbns  b^lo^^   the   watcrs.     To    the    Egyptian   it   was 

of  the      Amenti — the  land  of  the  West,    To  the  Greek, 

n  erwor  .  ^^  j^^  bcyond  the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  In  both 
the  Hebrew  and  Gentile  conception,  this  place  was  the 
receptacle  of  all  souls,  good  or  bad;  but  there  was  a 
wide  difference  between  the  more  spiritual  conceptions 
of  this  netherworld  —  as  represented,  for  example,  in 
the  Hebrew  prophetic  writings  —  and  those  popularly  en- 
tertained, which  were  a  confused  medley  of  conjectures 
born  of  shadowy  hopes  and  fears. 

The  first  offerings  to  the  dead  of  food  and  wine,  as 
among  the  early  Aryans,  were  undoubtedly  prompted  by 
the  belief  in  the  intimate  association  and  co-operation  of 
the  human  with  the  divine.  As  it  was  believed  that 
through  such  offerings  Indra  himself  was  strengthened  for 
his  conflict  with  the  powers  of  darkness,  so  it  was  natural 
to  consider  those  who  had  passed  from  sight  as  more  di- 
rectly the  participants  in  this  conflict,  and  to  make  offerings 
to  them  as  to  the  gods.  There  was  no  fear  of  the  gods, 
but  of  those  who  were  the  enemies  of  both  gods  and  men. 

But  fear  of  some  sort  there  has  always  been  among  men 
in  connection  with  death,  and  this  fear  has  extended  its 
kingdom  beyond  the  grave,  its  hold  upon  the  human 
heart  increasing  with  the  degeneration  of  the  spiritual 
nature.  Death  is  associated  with  weakness ;  the  last  steps 
taken  before  the  passage  to  the  unseen  world  point  down- 
ward, and  the  descent  readily  becomes  a  jDanic.  It  may 
be  but  the  passage,  as  in  the  old  Norse  phrase,  to  an- 
other light;  still  there  is  the  dread  of  some  dark  interim 
between  sunset  and  sunrise,  death  being  a  sort  of  Lesser 
Mysteries  to  which  the  Greater  are  yet  to  come. 


THE   ELEMENTAL   CONFLICT.  71 


XXXIX 

In  all  ages  there  has  been  the  tendency  to  divide  the 
universe  into  two  kingdoms,  with  conflicting  dynasties, 
one  of  which  is  engaged  in  the  temptation  and 
destruction  of  man,  as  the  other  is  pledged  to  -^  nasti^s° 
his  deliverance.  And  the  conflict  between  these 
is  usually  begun  in  the  fields  of  heaven.  Ate,  the  ancient 
daughter  of  Zeus, — she  of  the  shining  locks,  who  beguiles 
all;  in  whose  nimble  footsteps  limp  half-blind  and  lame  the 
Prayers  of  Men ;  who  never  touches  the  earth,  but,  with 
the  uncertain  steppings  of  her  tender  feet,  glides  above 
the  heads  of  men;  to  whom  is  attributed  all  that  goes 
amiss, —  practised  her  first  deceit  upon  Olympus,  whence 
she  was  hurled  to  Hades  by  her  divine  sire.  Circe  and 
the  Sirens  are,  in  the  Homeric  poems,  but  the  associates 
of  this  Ate ;  and  they  are  all  in  alliance  with  the  Tarta- 
rean dynasty. 

In  the  earliest  conceptions  of  men  respecting  these  two 
dynasties,  they  seem  to  hold  alternate  sway,  like  Day 
and  Night,  Life  and  Death.  It  is  a  movement  like  that  of 
the  flowing  and  ebbing  tide,  like  the  weaving  by  day  of 
Penelope's  web,  which  in  the  night  is  all  unraveled.  It 
is  a  singular  conception  —  that  of  Neptune  as  lying  always 
next  to  Pluto,  and  ever  leaning  toward  him ;  for  this  Pluto 
is  both  Giver  and  Taker,  the  god  of  Wealth  and  of  Loss  — 
and  the  sea  is  especially  the  way  of  his  passage,  whether 
he  gives  or  takes,  since  it  is  the  way  both  of  life  and  of 
death.  In  this  view,  while  the  conflict  between  the  Pow- 
ers of  Light  and  of  Darkness,  between  Fire  and  Mist,  is 
not  ignored,  it  would  seem  that  man  acknowledged  the 
supremacy  of  both  dynasties,  and  regarded  them  as  equal 
necessities.     His  fear  was  but  the  under-side  of  hope  — 


72  FROM    THE   BEGINNING. 

the  one  being  as  natural  and  necessary  as  the  other.  We 
find  here  a  normal  apprehension  —  the  sensitive  tremor  of 
quick  life  in  the  dark,  which  readily  passes  at  cock-crow- 
ing —  the  fear  of  children,  which  has  in  it  nothing  morbid. 
Eilytheia,  the  goddess  of  child-birth,  is  as  nearly  associated 
with  Hades  as  is  Hermes,  the  Psychopompos  or  Leader  of 
the  Dead.  To  the  lotus-bud  of  life  the  moisture  of  the 
boundless  sea  upon  which  it  floats  is  as  necessary  as  are 
the  heat  and  light  of  the  sun  in  the  boundless  sky  above  it. 
It  was  not  merely  an  euphemism  that  the  Furies  were  first 
named  Eumenides,  or  friendly-minded. 

In  the  first  period  of  Nature-worship  —  that  repre- 
sented in  the  Vedic  hymns  —  there  is  no  indication  of  any 
overmastering  fear.  In  the  following  period,  polytheism 
and  the  priesthood  come  to  have  a  fixed  status,  and  there 
is  between  the  two  dynasties  a  distinct  line  drawn,  a  sharper 
conflict  dividing  them. 


XL 

The  Aryan  race  in  its  movements  is,  on  the  one  hand, 

driven  by  fiercer  nomads,  and,  on  the  other,  is  brought  into 

contact  with  the  lower  and  more  barbarous  types 

Border-land  ^^  races,  native  to  the  regions  against  which  it  is 

of  the  thrown.  The  more  superstitious  beliefs  of  the  in- 
digenous peoples  insensibly  but  to  a  considerable 
degree,  in  the  progress  of  time,  affect  the  religious  faith  of 
their  invaders,  giving  it  a  harsher  aspect  at  the  same  time 
that  they  are  modified  by  it,  being  softened  and  lightened. 
But  the  terrible  pressure  is  continued  from  the  North  by 
the  restless  hordes  of  Tartars,  Scythians  or  Cimmerians. 
What  more  natural  than  that  these  dreaded  and  mysterious 
assailants  should  be  clothed  with  unearthly  attributes  ?  In 
a  period  when  so  much  of  the  earth  is  unknown,  all  the 


THE   BORDER-LAND.  73 

forces  lying  beyond  familiar  boundaries,  especially  if  they 
are  constantly  threatening  forces,  come  to  be  regarded  with 
a  dread  which,  in  proportion  to  the  uncertainty  of  antici- 
pated attack  and  the  magnitude  of  its  horrors  when  made, 
approaches  the  supernatural.  The  regions  from  which 
such  onsets  are  made,  so  remote  from  all  ordinary  associa- 
tions, become  in  a  fear-impelled  imagination  the  confines 
of  Hades  itself. 

The  Indian  islanders  of  the  Pacific  looked  upon  the 
Caribs  as  a  host  of  incarnate  fiends.  In  the  same  light  the 
Hindus  regarded  the  Nagas,  who,  from  the  mountains  of 
higher  India  between  Assam  and  Manipur,  made  incursions 
upon  the  peaceful  tribes  below  —  prototypes,  probably, 
of  the  mythologic  Nagas  kept  in  durance  by  Sekra  at  the 
root  of  Mount  Meru,  in  the  Indian  Tartarus.  The  Great 
Wall  of  China  was  at  first  a  defence  against  those  who 
were,  in  a  double  sense,  Tartars ;  as  all  the  fortresses  and 
iron  walls  erected  in  the  passes  of  the  Caucasus  against  the 
shadowy  hosts  of  the  North  were,  in  the  thoughts  of  their 
builders,  a  protection  against  the  legions  of  outer  darkness. 
This  Caucasian  region  —  as  its  connection  with  the  Tauric 
Diana  and  the  transfixion  of  the  Titan  Prometheus  would 
seem  to  indicate  —  was  from  earliest  times  a  centre  of 
superstitious  dread,  which  even  as  late  as  the  Moslem  con- 
quest still  lingered  among  the  mountains. 

This  ring-fence  around  the  ancient  world,  separating  the 
familiar  tribes  of  men  from  those  confounded  with  the 
nether  dynasty,  may  be  traced  from  Asia  into  Europe. 
The  Cimmerians,  who,  before  their  retreat  to  the  German 
Ocean,  dwelt  by  the  Bosporus,  attacked  the  lonians  with 
such  ferocity  that  we  are  not  surprised  by  the  Homeric 
legend  which  gave  them  a  place  near  the  entrance  to 
Hades.  In  the  Northwest  we  reach  Finland,  the  mytho- 
logical Jotunheim  of  the  Norse  folk  —  the  land  of  the 


74  FROM   THE    BEGINNING. 

Giants,  variously  named  by  the  Northern  skalds,  "  Mount- 
ain-Wolves," "  the  folk  of  the  caves,"  "  the  enemies  of  the 
Asse."  Here,  on  the  Finland  border,  are  certain  mountains, 
one  side  of  which  was  the  famihar  world  of  men,  while  the 
other,  with  deep  chasms  opening  to  Helheim,  was  the  haunt 
of  elves  and  demons,  against  whose  baleful  influence,  in 
the  Middle  Ages,  chapels  were  buih,  and  in  them  were 
placed  the  images  of  patron  saints. 

Thus,  from  India  to  the  Northern  Ocean  in  Europe,  are 
traced  the  lines  of  this  border  conflict.  But  along  the 
Western  boundaries  of  the  worid  its  signs  are  multiplied, 
and  the  intensity  of  their  dread  meaning  reaches  its  culmi- 
nation. For  here  we  are  upon  the  very  confines  of  Tar- 
tarus, and  we  have  also  reached  the  great  mysterious  sea, 
the  travellers  upon  which,  even  in  Plato's  thought,  were 
hardly  to  be  considered  as  surely  belonging  to  this  world. 
Here,  by  the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  stood  the  gigantic  Atlas, 
the  Titan  brother  of  Prometheus,  guarding  the  way  of  life 
and  of  death.  Near  at  hand  are  the  Cyclopean  forges ; 
and  all  along  this  alien  coast  are  the  cavern-homes  of  mon^ 
sters,  Chima^ras,  Gorgons,  and  the  Graise,  who,  with  Circe 
and  the  light-stepping  Ate,  represent  upon  the  earth  the 
underlying  Hades. 

From  such  human  conflict  with  ahen  powers,  it  was  but 
a  step  to  the  conception  of  a  wider  conflict,  transferred 
from  the  hands  of  men  to  the  championship  of  the  celes- 
tials—  the  conflict  of  Ormuzd  and  his  hosts  against  the 
hordes  of  Ahriman,  of  the  Devas  against  the  Asouras,  of 
the  Asce  against  the  Giants,  of  the  Olympians  against  the 
Titans  —  and,  forever,  against  the  Children  of  Mist  the 
Children  of  Fire. 


THE   ELEUSINIAN   DELIl^ERANCE.  75 


XLI 

No  system  of  faith  could  fail  to  recognise  the  shadowy 
kingdom  of  fear,  or  to  furnish  some  special  means  of  de- 
liverance.    The  Eleusinian  Mysteries,  especially 
after  their  modification  by  Orphic  influences,  and  ^j^^j^^^  ^g'_ 
the  fuller  association  therewith  of  the  Northern    Hverance 
Dionysus,  (who  had  absorbed  all  the  brightness    Kingdom 
of  Apollo,)  illuminated  the  dark  way  of  death    oUsar. 
and  the  world  beyond. 

But,  mingled  with  the  hopeful  symbolism  of  these  Mys- 
teries, we  find  in  the  general  belief  a  confused  mass  of  leg- 
ends relating  to  Hades,  and  it  is  difficult  to  distinguish 
between  those  which  were  germane  to  the  Eleusinia  and 
those  which  were  the   offspring  of  popular  fancy. 

The  validity  of  the  Eleusinian  initiation  was  acknowl- 
edged in  Hades,  and  this  ceremony  was  generally  deemed 
essential  as  a  preparation  for  death.  The  relation  of  the 
Eleusinia  to  death  and  the  underworld  is  shown  in  ancient 
paintings.  There  was  a  painting  by  Polygnotus  in  the 
Lesche  at  Delphi,  of  which  Pausanias  has  left  us  a  minute 
description,  representing  the  Homeric  Hades.  Charon 
has  just  reached  the  Tartarean  shore  of  the  Styx  with  his 
ghostly  freight  —  a  young  man  and  maiden.  The  latter  is 
Clesboia,  a  priestess  of  Demeter,  holding  in  her  hand  the 
sacred  basket  of  the  goddess.  The  uninitiated  are  repre- 
sented in  another  portion  of  this  picture  as  undergoing  the 
kind  of  punishments  which  the  poets  have  feigned,  when- 
ever they  have  attempted  to  give  an  occupation  to  the 
Shades  —  such  as  the  filling  of  leaking  cisterns  from  broken 
pitchers.  This  activity,  vain  as  it  is,  is  a  poetic  fiction 
rather  than  a  belief.  The  atmosphere  of  Hades  is  in  all 
ancient  traditions,  and  especially  in  those  of  the  Semitic 


76  FROM    THE    BEGINNING. 

races,  one  of  Lethean  suspense,  the  nearest  possible  to  that 
of  sleep.  It  is  a  dusty,  shadowy  realm,  bloodless  and  un- 
substantial. The  movements  of  Pluto's  pale  and  spectral 
subjects  are  feeble  and  wandering,  like  those  of  somnam- 
bulists. It  is  an  abode  of  neither  positive  torment  nor  bliss 
—  a  state  of  waiting. 

The  legend  of  Persephone  is  the  special  link  between 
the  Eleusinia  and  the  underworld.  The  story  of  her 
seizure  was,  in  some  form,  an  important  element  in  the 
primitive  traditions  of  all  ancient  faith.  It  was  that  part 
of  them  which  especially  touched  death  and  the  belief  in  a 
resurrection.  In  the  Egyptian  tradition  it  is  Osiris  who  is 
lost  and  Isis  who  restores  him.  The  legends  of  Adonis, 
of  Attys  and  of  the  Scandinavian  Baldur  have  a  similar 
significance,  as  had  also  the  Babylonian  story  of  the 
visit  of  Ishtar  to  "  the  house  of  obscurity,  the  seat  of 
Irkalla."  The  song  of  Linus,  wherever  sung, —  in  Egypt, 
Phoenicia,  Cyprus  or  Greece, —  while  to  outward  seeming, 
in  connection  with  autumnal  festivals,  it  was  the  dirge  of 
the  dying  Summer,  was  also  the  requiem  of  all  sepulture, 
and,  in  the  religious  system  of  which  it  was  a  part,  it  was  a 
prophecy  of  hope. 

XLII 

The  conduct  of  the  departed  soul  to  Hades  was,  in  the 

popular  conception,  invested  with  the  most  circumstantial 

^,    _       dramatic  interest.     To  meet  the  supposed  diffi- 

The  Con-  ^  ^ 

duct  of  the  culties  of  the  journey  there  was,  through  sacred 
^^^'^'      rites   and   observances,   an  elaborate  system  of 
contrivances,   some   of  them  rude  and   mechanical,   and 
others,   of  a  later  period,  more  refined  and  spiritual. 

In  the  first  place,  there  was  the  perplexing  solicitude  as 
to   the   dissolution  of  soul  and   body.     The   Egyptians, 


HERMES    PSYCHOPOMPOS.  77 

believing  in  the  permanent  identity  of  the  two,  embalmed 
their  dead.  The  Greeks,  on  the  other  hand,  took  the 
speediest  means  of  precipitating  dissolution  by  crema- 
tion, praying  meanwhile  to  the  winds  to  hurry  forward 
the  process  of  liberation.  Sepulture  of  some  sort  was  con- 
sidered absolutely  necessary,  ere  the  soul  could  wholly 
leave  its  familiar  haunts. 

The  obstacles  in  the  way  of  the  subterranean  journey, 
once  entered  upon,  were,  in  their  earliest  shape,  of  a  mate- 
rial character:  wild  beasts,  thick  darkness,  impenetrable 
thickets  —  against  which  there  was  the  equally  rude  pro- 
vision of  hatchets,  flint  and  tinder-boxes,  and  defensive 
weapons,  buried  with  the  dead. 

In  an  age  of  greater  refinement,  the  desolation  of  an 
awful  solitude  confronted  the  soul,  against  which  hatchets 
and  tinder-box  and  defensive  weapons  were  of  no  avail. 
Having  its  rise  in  the  heightened  apprehension  of  a  subtle 
imagination,  it  could  only  be  dissipated  by  an  equally 
subtle  construction  of  hope.  In  the  transition  from  a 
cycle  known  and  measured  to  one  unfamiliar  and  wholly 
undefined,  boundless  range  was  given  to  the  operations 
of  hostile  powers.  The  guidance  and  guardianship  of 
Hermes  relieved  the  soul  in  this  terrible  solicitude.  This 
important  oftice  of  Hermes  gave  him  a  peculiar  place  in 
human  regard.  Sacrifice  was  offered  to  him  before  death, 
and  libation  before  sleep,  the  image  of  death.  The  Hel- 
lenic imagination,  repelled  by  the  weird  solemnity  which 
was  his  primitive  characteristic,  reconstructed  him  to  suit 
its  more  joyous  mood.  Stories  were  invented  of  the  ludi- 
crous adventures  of  his  infancy — sportive  traits  that  con- 
vulsed Olympus  with  laughter.  An  intellectual  subtlety 
was  attributed  to  him,  a  craft  used  for  the  benefit  of 
mankind.  That  he  might  seem  less  a  stranger  to  the  dead, 
he  was  more  than  any  other  divinity  associated  with  the 


78  FROM    THE    BEGINNING. 

common  concerns  of  life.  He  was  the  god  of  commerce, 
the  master  of  accords  and  social  amenities.  His  statue 
was  in  the  vestibule  of  every  home,  and  the  most  familiar 
object  in  every  public  place ;  he  was  the  god  of  the  high- 
ways, the  cross-ways  and  the  by-ways,  in  life  as  beyond 
it.  Thus  he  was  welcomed  as  a  comforter,  and  with  his 
golden  wand  he  calmed  the  troubled  thoughts  that  lie 
next  to  death,  even  as  he  quelled  the  tremors  of  his 
ghostly  followers  netherward. 

Charon,  the  Stygian  ferryman,  while  a  sacred  figure,  was 
in  most  respects  a  creature  of  the  popular  fancy.  The  pay- 
ment of  two  oboli  for  the  passage  across  the  dark  river  (a 
tariff  religiously  placed  under  the  tongue  of  every  Greek 
at  death)  and  the  supposed  preference  of  this  stem  person- 
age for  well-dressed  people,  as  well  as  his  obstinate  refusal 
to  take  any  passenger  whose  friends  had  not  esteemed  him 
worthy  of  decent  sepulture,  seem  to  indicate  a  regard  for 
wealth  and  respectability — like  that  which  prompted  the 
Norse  proverb,  "It  is  not  well  to  go  barefooted  to  Odin" 
— not  in  accord  with  any  deep  spiritual  feeling. 

XLIII 

But  the  special  occasion  of  human  dread  in  connection 

with  Hades  was  its  general  air  of  desolation  and  weakness. 

Faith  in     ^^  havc  3.  glimpsc  of  this  in  the  eagerness  with 

the  Lord    which  the  ghostly  throng  press  to  the  outer  gate 

of        when    Ulysses   fills   the    sacrificial    trench   with 

the  West.    131qq(J — j^gj-  fQj.  q-^q  ^^ste  of  the  old  vital  current ! 

To  dissipate  this  gloom  was  the  mission  of  the  Eleusinian 

saviours.      Not   only  is  the  hope  of  deliverance  through 

them  the  master-key  to  the  symboHsm  of  tombs;    these 

saviours  were  the  hope  of  the  soul  beyond  Hades  itself. 

Above  all  other  defences  against  the  Powers  of  Darkness 


IN   HIS   LIKENESS. 


79 


— above  the  buried  weapons,  the  hatchets  and  flints  and 
other  sepulchral  accessories,  above  the  elaborate  funeral 
rites  and  the  comfortable  guidance  of  Hermes — was  the 
faith  in  the  Lord  and  Lady  of  the  West,  to  whom  they 
committed  themselves  in  their  last  sleep,  nay,  rather  it 
should  be  said,  in  whom  they  fell  asleep.  "  Asleep  in 
Dionysus,"  "  Asleep  in  Osiris,"  are  familiar  inscriptions  on 
sepulchral  tablets.  Nothing  less  than  this  can  express  the 
identification,  as  it  seemed  to  the  initiated,  of  themselves 
with  their  divine  deliverer — so  complete  that  in  Attica  the 
dead  were  named  Demetreioi,  after  the  Great  Mother,  just 
as  the  Egyptian  at  his  decease  took  the  name  of  his  sav- 
iour Osiris,  the  Northman  that  of  Odin,  and  the  Aztec  at 
death  was  clothed  in  the  habiliments  of  his  sun-god.  At 
the  numerous  burial-places  attributed  to  Osiris — Busiris, 
Taposiris,  Memphis,  and  Philse — the  Egyptians  were 
anxious  to  secure  for  themselves  likewise  their  last  resting- 
place,  that  they  might  lie  near  the  grave  of  their  Lord. 

XLIV 

But  the  bright  face  of  Dionysus  sometimes  seems  to  suf- 
fer eclipse  in  this  nether  darkness  which  he  has  visited  for 
the   dehverance    of  souls.     Demeter   herself  is 
sometimes  imagined  as  an  Erynnis.    There  is  in  ^'""^^"°"^ 
the  human  heart  a  constant  flux  and  reflux  from   h°p^  ^^'^ 
hope  to  fear,  and  from  fear  to  hope.     Thus  in 
mediseval   art,   the    Father   is   sometimes   represented  as 
angry,  and  the  Son  as  standing  between  Him  and  con- 
demned humanity ;  and  again  the  Son  is  shown  as  angry, 
and  the  Virgin  becomes  the  mediator. 

Nevertheless,  in  the  end,  the  wave  of  hope  is  the 
stronger,  bearing  the  human  soul  beyond  the  land  of  si- 
lence and  of  darkness  to  the  Elysian  Isles. 


8o  FROM    THE   BEGINNING. 


XLV 

The  history  of  Rome  furnishes  no  new  chapter  in  the 

development  of  ancient  faith.     Roman  rehgion  reflected 

^,         Roman  civiHsation,  which  was  not  creative,  but 

The  '  _  ' 

Roman  formativc.  Roman  Hfe,  even  in  its  heroic  period, 
was  cold  and  hard  and  tense ;  it  was  the  history 
of  an  army,  and  its  military  discipline  was  transferred  to 
its  civil  functions ;  what  it  ambitiously  mastered  it  admi- 
rably administered.  Its  virtues,  in  this  period,  were  those 
of  the  trained  athlete;  "  Justitia  fiat,  ruat  coelum  "  was  its 
expressive  motto,  and  such  stress  was  laid  upon  Justice 
that  all  heavenly  graces  were  indeed  sacrificed  upon  its 
altar. 

This  branch  of  the  Aryan  race,  with  its  threefold 
strain  —  Latin,  Sabine  and  Etruscan  —  considered  as  a 
Roman  development,  has  no  patriarchal  prelude,  so  rap- 
idly are  the  shepherd-founders  transformed,  through  wolf- 
ish nurture,  into  a  nation  of  spearmen  (Quirites).  From 
the  first,  Rome  is  a  Campus  Martius ;  and  its  martial 
career  has  no  heroic  background;  the  structure  of  Vir- 
gil's epic  is  wholly  unreal,  an  echo,  not  a  response,  to  the 
Homeric  story ;  there  is  no  Roman  Achilles  or  Roman 
Helen  —  neither  the  rapture  of  love  to  awaken  a  rhap- 
sody, nor  the  ideal  glories  of  war.  The  poets  of  the 
Augustan  age  rehearsed  the  Hellenic  legends  and  tales, 
as  if  they  had  become  their  own  by  adoption,  just  as  the 
Romans  of  that  age  worshipped  thirty-thousand  gods, 
which,  through  conquest,  had  been  included  in  their 
Pantheon. 

This  Roman  people  has  no  prototype.  It  is  a  nation 
which,  through  the  strenuous  exertions  of  its  infancy  against 
irritant  forces,  has  been  denied  the  brooding  calm  of  child- 


THE   ROMAN  MILITARY  SACRAMENT.  8i 

hood.  Accordingly,  in  its  imperial  maturity,  (and  the  empire 
is  necessary  to  its  maturity,)  it  is  the  grandest  exhibition 
ever  witnessed  upon  earth  of  a  merely  worldly  power  — 
the  grandest  for  its  intensity  as  well  as  for  its  extent  — 
without  one  note  of  enthusiasm  to  relieve  the  brutal- 
ity, relentlessness  and  atrocity  of  its  triumphs, —  without  a 
single  spiritual  impulse  to  lighten  and  soften  the  fabric  of  its 
might,  or  which  would  recall  the  large  purposes  and  ideal 
expecta'iions  nourished  in  a  sublime  youth.  Accordingly, 
also,  in  its  decline,  there  is  no  golden  glory  of  twilight  in 
its  evening  sky,  even  as  it  has  had  no  dewy,  fragrant  and 
aspiring  dawn.  It  is  as  brutal  in  its  relaxation  as  in  its 
tension  —  a  relaxation  which  has  begun  in  the  imperial 
city,  while  yet  its  victorious  legions  guard  the  extremities 
of  its  domain  from  India  to  Britain  —  a  failure  at  the 
heart  of  the  gladiator  while  yet  his  strong  arms  grasp  the 
world.  As  no  heaven,  with  ample  inspiration  of  hope,  lay 
about  Rome  in  her  infancy,  so  over  her  closing  eyelids 
there  is  none  that  bends  down  with  still  ampler  promise 
and  invitation. 

It  is  the  tremendous,  incessant  and  complex  activity  of 
Rome  which  chiefly  impresses  us,  the  reaction  from  which 
is  not  a  development  of  the  passive  side  of  human  nature 
— of  esthetic  sensibility,  of  philosophic  contemplation 
or  of  spiritual  intuition — but  an  abandonment  to  indolent 
ease  and  luxurious  pleasures.  We  confront  a  system  of 
competitions,  strifes,  encroachments,  injuries,  which  are 
either  balanced  against  each  other  in  an  equilibrium 
which  is  called  justice,  or  are  extinguished  by  imperial 
absorption.  Caesar,  having  by  usurpation  reached  the 
throne,  must  extinguish  the  possibility  of  ail  other  usur- 
pation. The  empire  itself  has  no  security  until  it  has  sup- 
pressed all  other  empire  ;  the  bond  of  allegiance,  kept  to- 
day and  to-morrow  broken,  is  not  sufficient  —  there  must 


82  FROM   THE   BEGINNING. 

be  no  alternative  to  submission.  It  is  a  vast  system  of 
social  activity,  but  it  is  the  military  society,  the  army, 
which  is  predominant.  There  is  nothing  absolutely  sacred 
but  the  military  sacrament.  And  Caesar,  the  head  of  the 
army,  is  the  fountain  of  all  law. 

Poets,  orators,  and  historians  combine  in  adulations  of 
the  Caesars,  looking  beyond  their  triumphs  to  a  millennium 
of  peace  and  prosperity.  They  look  upon  the  marble 
splendors  of  their  city,  upon  the  magnificent  highways 
throughout  the  empire,  upon  the  aqueducts  and  other 
material  improvements,  upon  the  spoils  of  conquest  and 
the  captives  that  become  the  slaves  of  the  conquerors; 
and  they  point  to  all  these  as  evidences  of  national  wealth 
and  grandeur.  They  see  not  the  hollowness  of  the  whole 
scheme;  that  the  expense  of  the  army,  of  all  these  im- 
provements and  of  the  pubhc  displays,  is  the  exhaustion 
of  agriculture  and  commerce ;  that  peace  itself  is,  in  these 
circumstances,  but  another  name  for  desolation  ;  that,  in 
such  a  system,  there  can  be  no  security,  when  of  all 
Romans  the  least  secure  from  violence  is  the  sacredly 
inviolable  Caesar ;  and  that,  wholly  apart  from  any  abuses 
incident  to  the  system,  the  very  strength  of  any  merely 
material  structure  must  be  accounted  as  weakness;  so  that 
even  if  there  were  no  enemy  to  assail  it,  no  barbarians 
lying  in  wait  for  its  destruction,  it  would  fall  to  pieces  of 
its  own  weight  and  brittleness. 

In  the  Roman  religion  inhered  the  weakness  which  was 
inherent  in  Roman  civilisation.  Cccsar  himself  was  Pon- 
tifex  Maximus  —  nay,  he  was  the  only  divinity  practi- 
cally recognised  in  this  worldly  scheme. 

The  study  of  Roman  history  is  instructive  only  as  it  is  a 
study  of  death  —  not  simply  of  the  death  of  Rome,  but  of 
Rome  as  itself  the  death  of  the  ancient  wodd.  It  was  be- 
cause of  the  lack  of  any  spiritual  impulse  or  movement  that 


THE   ROMAN   PREPARATION   FOR   CHRIST.      83 

this  death  has  endured  through  nearly  a  score  of  centuries. 
For  Constantine  and  the  worldly  Christianity  which  fol- 
lowed his  standards  only  prolonged  the  mortality,  which 
was  still  further  perpetuated  in  Papal  Rome,  and  which 
remains  to-day  in  all  the  forms  of  Church  or  State  which 
still  retain  the  similitude  of  the  old  worldly  scheme.  What 
an  inversion  of  terms  was  there  in  the  reign  of  Decius,  when 
death  occupied  the  places  of  life  above  ground,  while  life 
was  hidden  in  the  places  of  death,  with  the  Christians  in 
the  catacombs  !  The  living  spirit  of  Christianity  might 
well  have  looked  forward  to  the  coming  of  the  Northern 
barbarians ;  but  when  the  latter  came,  while  they  shattered 
so  much  of  the  material  structure,  they  failed  to  precipitate 
the  mortal  issue,  but  rather  fed  with  their  fresh  Hfe  the 
decrepid  ecclesiastical  formalism  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

The  connection  of  the  Roman  Empire  with  Christianity 
will  ever  remain  its  most  interesting  feature,  as  important 
prospectively  as  was  the  connection  of  Judea  with  it  retro- 
spectively. In  the  case  of  Judea  the  vital  prophetic  current 
was  sustained  for  ages  against  antagonistic  tendencies,  lead- 
ing up  to  the  Christ  who,  at  his  coming,  was  rejected  by 
the  Jews.  In  the  case  of  Rome,  it  would  almost  seem  that 
the  strenuous  but  always  moribund  empire  —  its  energies 
following  always  the  ways  of  spiritual  death  —  had  no  in- 
telligible meaning  save  as  related  to  the  new  life  which  was 
to  come.  The  universal  peace  of  the  Augustan  age  encircled 
and  brooded  over  the  babe  in  Bethlehem — a  peace  which, 
with  all  that  it  involved,  and  especially  the  easier  communi- 
cation between  all  parts  of  the  civilised  world,  would  seem 
to  have  been  conquered,  at  the  expense  of  all  Pagan  life, 
with  reference  to  the  advent  of  this  holy  child  and  the 
spread  of  his  gospel.  He  was  crucified  by  Roman  soldiers. 
And,  though  during  his  life-time  and  for  a  long  time  after- 
ward his  name  never  in  so  much  as  a  whisper  found  its 


84  FROM  THE  BEGINNING. 

way  to  the  ear  of  a  Caesar,  yet  at  the  end  of  three  centuries, 
during  which  his  followers  spread  over  the  most  important 
portions  of  the  empire,  their  zeal  being  kept  alive  by  frequent 
persecution,  he  was  lifted  up  to  a  fresh  crucifixion  upon 
Constantine's  banner  and  his  religion  was  degraded  by  its 
official  recognition.  Thereafter,  under  the  incubus  of 
Imperial  and  Papal  alliances,  in  the  busy  tomb  of  this 
Roman  death  was  the  living  germ  of  Christianity  buried 
for  centuries,  awaiting  its  partial  emancipation  through  the 
Protestant  impulse  and  its  complete  emancipation  yet  to 
come. 

XLVI 

The  history  of  man's  spiritual  development,  before  the 

coming  of  our  Lord,  is  that  of  his  correspondence  with  the 

Eternal  Word  —  the  manifestation  of  the  Father 

A  Retro-    ■     ^ r^^^^^Q  g^d  in  the  human  heart.     And  in  this 

spect. 

cycle  of  ancient  faith  man's  response  to  the 
divine  leading  of  the  Word  in  Nature  was  the  measure  of 
his  divinely  quickened  life,  and  his  departure  therefrom 
through  waywardness  and  self-will  was  the  measure  of  his 
spiritual  death. 

We  have  traced  the  ever-widening  steps  of  this  depar- 
ture, from  the  naive  sensibility  of  the  earliest  Aryan  faith 
to  the  immediately  divine  suggestions  of  Nature ;  through 
the  complexities  of  institutional  life  —  not  errant  because  it 
was  structural,  but  because  it  was  a  worldly  scheme,  exclud- 
ing more  and  more  completely,  at  every  stage,  the  divine 
life  —  including  the  development  of  a  priestly  order,  a  sys- 
tem of  polytheism  and  a  dramatic  ritual  associated  with 
fixed  symbols;  until,  in  the  completion  of  this  worldly 
scheme,  through  the  perfection  of  that  civilisation  which 
under  the   Cresars  possessed   and  policed   the   habitable 


THE   RETROSPECT.  85 

globe,  we  reach  the  ukimate  ilkistration  of  spiritual  death 
—  a  death  which  not  only  is  the  paralysis  of  Paganism,  but, 
reaching  forward  with  its  spectral  gloom,  lays  its  icy  hand 
upon  the  warm  heart  of  nascent  Christendom,  muffling  its 
divine  voices,  and  suppressing  its  spiritual  impulses. 

We  have  seen  also  that  whithersoever  the  wayward  chil- 
dren of  men  wandered,  thither  closely  followed  the  lov- 
ing Spirit  of  God,  giving  them,  so  long  as  they  in  any 
way  held  to  the  living  symbols  of  Nature,  the  large  mean- 
ings of  these  symbols ;  with  its  own  tenderness  inspiring  the 
personifications  of  their  imagination  —  the  great  sorrowing 
Mother,  known  by  so  many  names,  and  their  saviour 
gods ;  with  its  radiant  comfort  illuminating  every  image  of 
hope  shaped  in  their  trembhng  hearts  against  the  images  of 
fear ;  with  its  saving  virtue  so  transforming  their  very  per- 
versions that  false  mediations  might  foreshadow  the  true 
Way,  and  hollow  propitiations  anticipate  the  reconcilement 
to  come;  following  them  Avith  prophetic  warnings  and 
pleadings ;  making  their  masterful  pride  of  heroism  and 
thought  its  ministers  for  the  destruction  of  lifeless  struc- 
tures ;  and  finally,  in  this  close  pursuit,  overtaking  them  in 
their  last  extremity  —  in  the  helplessness  of  death,  in  that 
vast  prison-house  and  sepulchre,  known  as  Roman  civilisa- 
tion —  taking  their  very  flesh  and  appearing  unto  them  as 
the  Son  of  Man. 

It  is  he  who  hath  been  from  the  beginning,  seen  from 
the  first  in  all  prophetic  vision.  It  is  he  who  hath  trodden 
the  wine-press  alone, —  the  Bridegroom  who  hath  passed 
while  all  the  foolish  virgins  slept, —  the  Eternal  Word  that, 
in  Nature  and  in  Man,  hath  been  bruised  in  every  fibre, 
yet  lending  himself  to  the  bruising, —  the  Good  Shepherd 
who  hath  gathered  his  lambs  from  every  earthly  fold. 

END    OF    FIRST    BOOK. 


SECOND  BOOK 


THE   INCARNATION 


f^ 


THE  INCARNATION 


OHOLY  Night !  At  all  times  holy,  being  the  oldest 
ordinance  of  God,  the  oldest  symbol  of  the  Eternal 
Word,  before  ever  the  sun  was  made — thrice- 
holy  now,  overshadowing   the   mystery   of   the     coming 
Word  become  flesh!   Thou  that  veiling  the  earth  „  .°^  '^^ 

Bridegroom. 

dost  reveal  the  heavens  ;  thou  that  ever  regardest 
Eilytheia  who  presideth  over  child-birth  ;  thou  mother  of 
Sleep,  the  nurse  of  all  strength ;  thou  sister  of  Hades,  the 
Grave  of  the  world,  whence  riseth  the  Lord  of  Light — 
thou  hast  held  within  thy  darkness  not  only  all  shapes  of 
fear  and  all  ghostly  portents,  being  thyself  the  likeness  at 
once  of  man's  ignorance  and  of  God's  mysterious  per- 
mission of  all  that  men  call  evil, — pain  and  sorrow  and 
death, — but  also  all  those  precious  things  which  have 
been  hid  from  the  foundation  of  the  world,  the  treasures 
of  the  Kingdom,  now  for  the  first  time  to  be  brought  into 
the  clear  light  of  day  and  made  real  to  the  human  heart 
by  the  Son  of  Man. 

Beneath  thy  veil,  O  holiest  night  of  nights,  all  Nature, 
that  hath  so  long  sighed  forth  in  every  inarticulate  breath- 
ing the  voiceless  Word,  is  thrilled  with  the  expectancy  of 
utterance.  Thou  walkest  upon  the  earth,  and  thy  feet  are 
in  the  darkness,  but  above  thy  head  all  the  heavenly  lamps 
are  lighted,  and  behold !   the  Bridegroom  cometh  ! 

It  is,  indeed,  the  night  of  the  human  world,  whose  dark- 
ness closeth  all   around  this  radiant  spot   in  Bethlehem. 


■  99  THE   INCARNATION. 

scarcely  conscious  thereof.  The  grandest  manifestation 
of  merely  human  power  and  at  the  same  time  of  its  inher- 
ent weakness  standeth,  in  sublime  antithesis,  over  against 
the  Appearing  of  the  Lord  of  a  new  and  spiritual  king- 
dom,—  the  strophe  in  which  are  mingled  the  brazen  blare 
of  martial  trumpets  and  the  languishing  strains  of  Syba- 
ritic music,  against  the  heavenly  antistrophe  of  the  angels, 
heralding  Peace  and  Good  Will. 

And  yet  this  night  of  human  history  in  many  ways  fore- 
shadoweth  the  dawn.  The  semblance  of  unity  into  which 
all  peoples  are  brought  by  imperial  cohesion  is  a  prepara- 
tion for  the  real  brotherhood  of  all  men  in  Christ.  This 
universal  peace  which  hath  fallen  upon  the  world,  though 
it  is  but  an  armistice  maintained  by  numberless  legions, 
foreshadoweth  the  peace  which  passeth  understanding. 
And  not  alone  are  there  these  negative  similitudes  of  the 
coming  kingdom ;  for,  while  all  men  sleep, —  as  in  the  deep 
slumber  of  the  dusty  underworld,— yet  a  more  magical 
strain  than  that  from  an  Orpheus'  lyre  reacheth  some 
inner  sense,  stirring  a  divine  tumult  in  their  dreams.  In 
this  lull,  this  suspense  of  human  thought,  there  is  a 
sursum  corda,  an  undercurrent  of  expectation,  a  sugges- 
tion of  meanings  that  transcend  all  visible  pomp  and 
circumstance — meanings  which  find  no  centre  of  resolu- 
tion in  Rome  or  Cresar.  Not  even  upon  the  earth  can 
be  found  such  a  centre,  until  the  Expected  come;  and 
there  be  Wise  men  who  watch,  while  others  sleep,  until 
they  see  the  Star  in  the  East  and  go  forth  to  find  the  King. 

It  is  not  only  in  Palestine,  or  in  the  East,  that  there  is 
this  vaguely  conscious  waiting.  The  divine  impulse  of 
expectation  reacheth  from  the  waiting  heart  of  the  virgin 
mother  unto  the  western  bounds  of  the  vast  imperial 
bosom  of  the  world,  now  held  in  the  deep  sleep  which 
encloseth  the  vision  of  heavenly  Rest. 


IN   C/ES^R'S    SHADOIV.  91 

But  not  unto  the  wise  ones  and  great  of  the  earth,  but 
unto  humble  shepherds  tending  their  flocks  by  night,  is  the 
direct  announcement  of  our  Lord's  Appearing  first  made. 
Unto  them  is  the  song  of  the  angels ;  and  every  brute 
creature  heareth  this  song  and  kneeleth  in  dumb  sympathy 
with  this  Noel.  Not  unto  Caesar,  not  unto  Herod,  nor  yet 
unto  the  Sanhedrim  is  lisped  the  glad  tidings.  Nay,  all 
his  life  upon  the  earth,  shall  this  Christ  stand  in  Ccesar's 
shadow ;  the  manger  in  which  he  lieth  at  birth  is  but  an 
incident  of  Ccesar's  tax-gathering ;  he  shall  fly  from  the 
presence  of  Herod,  Caesar's  representative,  who  seeketh 
the  young  child's  life ;  at  the  hands  of  Cassar's  spearmen 
shall  he  suffer  death  —  and  yet  shall  this  august  Ctesar 
never  know  of  his  existence ! 

The*  heralds  come  from  Heaven,  this  vast  multitude  of 
angels,  singing  of  Peace  on  Earth,  Good  Will  to  Men,  as 
the  refrain  of  the  Noel  song,  and  the  stars  are  the  lamps 
of  this  heavenly  procession ;  but  the  Bridegroom  himself 
is  not  there,  nor  in  this  brilliant  company.  Wherefore 
cometh  he  not  out  of  the  skies  with  supreme  pomp  and 
majesty  ?  Nay,  this  night  is  heaven  shorn  of  its  glory 
that  the  earth  may  have  it  altogether  ! 

"  Ye  shall  see  a  babe  wrapped  in  swaddling  clothes  and 
lying  in  a  manger."  This  to  the  shepherds  was  to  be  the 
sign.  As  man  was  created  in  the  image  of  God,  so  now 
God  is  born  in  the  image  of  man.  He  that  hath  filled  all 
human  life  in  its  vital  currents  now  receiveth  these  cur- 
rents into  his  own  nature,  so  that  henceforth  he  knoweth 
what  is  in  man  by  a  human  experience.  And  this  expe- 
rience in  him  beginneth  at  the  very  beginning,  not  only 
in  that  he  is  a  babe,  but  in  that  the  stream  of  all  humanity 
before  him,  with  its  inherent  and  inherited  tendencies 
and  aptitudes,  entereth  into  his  blood  and  brain  and 
temperament,  so  that  he  is  verily  the  Son  of  Man. 


92  THE   INCARNATION. 

"  In  swaddling  clothes  and  lying  in  a  manger."  He 
hath  not  even  the  wings  of  angel  —  so  far  from  that  is  he 
that  there  is  not  room  for  him  in  the  inn.  Crowded  out, 
from  the  very  first,  is  this  long-expected  Guest.  He  Com- 
eth into  the  world  as  even  the  poorest  of  all  mankind,  a 
helpless  infant,  who  must  grow  even  to  reach  the  stature 
of  a  man. 


II 

What  limitation !     He  who  has  been,  and  still  is,  the 

Eternal  Son,  the  Word  which  has  free  course  in  all  worlds, 

^,         which  is  the  divine  Hfe  of  the  Universe  and  the 

The 

Human  divinc  life  in  humanity,  is,  as  incarnate,  the  Son  of 
God  only  as  he  is  the  Son  of  Man,  having  only 
such  divine  knowledge  as  have  the  pure  in  heart  through 
the  vision  of  God  —  only  such  powers  as  any  man  may 
have  through  full  correspondence  with  the  divine  life  in 
perfect  faith.  Truly  from  the  beginning  he  has  limited 
himself,  since  there  is  no  manifestation  save  by  limitation ; 
he  has  taken  all  embodiments ;  he  has  not  only  determined 
all  laws  and  types,  but  his  diversification  has  been  ultimate 
in  all  individual  existence  —  but,  as  incarnate,  he  is  limited 
in  his  limitation,  in  his  diversity,  and  is  singularly  finite, 
being  only  the  one  individual  man.  He  is  limited  in  time, 
not  only  to  a  single  life,  but  to  one  particular  generation. 
He  is  directly  seen  by  only  a  few  of  that  generation,  and 
his  words,  confined  to  a  single  tongue,  are  heard  by  those 
only  who  come  within  the  range  of  his  voice.  The  word 
itself,  by  becoming  articulate,  is  broken ;  and  in  order  to 
reach  the  whole  world,  it  must  be  recorded,  it  may  be, 
long  after  its  utterance,  and  translated  into  many  tongues. 
He  requires  nourishment  to  sustain  life  and  sleep  for  its 
refreshment.     If  he  walks   much  he  is  weary;  even  the 


''UNTO    US  A    SON   IS   BORN."  93 

touch  which  heals  takes  something  of  his  strength.  His 
outward  knowledge  comes  as  to  other  men  through  sensa- 
tion and  through  the  understanding.  He  that  has  seen 
always  because  he  had  not  eyes  now  sees  with  the  eye. 
He  to  whom  a  thousand  years  are  but  as  a  day,  now 
counts  the  days  by  sunrises  and  sunsets.  Moreover  he 
inherits  such  habitudes  and  dispositions  as  other  men,  and 
there  is  in  him  the  possibility  of  a  choice  that,  if  exercised, 
would  waken  them  into  sin. 

Yet,  Beloved,  on  the  other  hand,  what  gain  unto  us 
from  this  very  limitation !  Suppose  that  the  Christ  had 
come,  as  the  majority  of  the  Hebrews  expected  him  to 
come,  in  the  clouds  and  with  glory,  the  Son  of  Man  only 
in  form,  and  had  established  a  universal  kingdom,  the 
dead  having  been  raised,  so  that,  even  as  to  time,  there 
should  be  no  partial  submission  to  his  reign,  and  that 
this  kingdom  should  have  no  end.  Suppose,  moreover, 
that  it  was  a  spiritual  kingdom.  To  the  very  conception 
of  a  so  sudden  transformation  the  idea  of  a  divine  com- 
pulsion is  essential.  If  it  was  this  overwhelming  display  of 
divine  power  that,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  was  to  be  made 
— why  then  all  these  centuries  of  waiting?  If  the  loving 
response  of  man's  will  unto  the  divine  will,  from  choice 
and  simple  faith,  was  desired,  then  we  can  comprehend 
the  waiting  of  the  Bridegroom.  But  if  this  faith  and  will- 
ingness were  accounted  so  little  in  the  Messianic  kingdom 
that  the  latter  must  be  a  divine  seizure  of  the  human  soul, 
then  wherefore  should  its  coming  have  been  delayed  ? 
There  can  be  no  spiritual  kingdom  established  through 
this  violence — it  is  the  violent  that  taketh  /V  by  force. 
The  saviour  that  should  come  thus,  in  the  mere  semblance 
of  humanity,  would  unto  the  human  heart  seem  less  than 
a  Dionysus  or  an  Osiris. 

"  Unto  us  a  Son  is  bom."     This  is  the  true  prophetic 


94  THE    INCARNATION. 

anticipation.  He  must  be  wholly  ours !  Ours,  not  by  a 
dramatic  fiction  or  impersonation,  but  in  the  uttermost 
reality.  This  is  the  essential  meaning  of  the  Incarnation. 
Take  away  a  single  limitation;  let  this  Jesus  of  Galilee 
be  in  but  one  point  not  tempted  as  we  are ;  let  him  do  or 
know  save  as  it  is  possible  for  man  to  do  or  know;  let 
him,  like  Buddha,  hurl  elephants  into  the  air  by  marvel- 
lous strength,  or,  like  Joshua,  make  the  sun  and  moon 
stand  still — then  he  is  in  so  far  other  than  the  Son  of 
Man,  is  in  so  far  removed  from  us,  and  the  human  heart 
receives  a  shock  in  its  deepest  sensibiHty. 

It  is  not  a  question  as  to  what  an  Emanuel  could  be. 
Any  sort  of  incarnation,  with  all  degrees  of  power,  is  con- 
ceivable. It  is  a  question  as  to  the  significance  of  this 
Emanuel  in  his  relation  to  the  human  heart.  It  is  an 
adulterous  generation  that  seeketh  after  a  sign.  The 
Word  is  not  become  flesh  to  reveal  but  to  veil  omnipo- 
tence. There  has  been  no  lack  of  the  manifestation  of 
almighty  power  from  the  beginning,  or  of  the  human 
recognition  of  such  power.  He  whose  might  is  shown 
in  the  movement  of  worlds  need  not  take  the  shape  of 
a  man  to  show  that  might.  The  divine  mastery  of  the 
elements  is  unquestioned ;  and  their  mastery  by  a  human 
hand  would  be  a  novel  revelation  only  in  its  new  asso- 
ciation with  human  instead  of  with  divine  power  — 
showing,  not  that  God  had  become  man,  but  how  nearly 
man  had  become  God. 

The  very  efficacy  of  a  Saviour  is  in  his  nearness. 
Through  the  Incarnation,  this  nearness  to  us  is  closer 
than  that  of  the  shepherd  unto  the  sheep.  The  shepherd 
indeed  follows  his  sheep  whithersoever  they  may  have 
strayed.  He  finds  them  on  the  dark  mountains,  and 
they,  hearing  his  familiar  voice,  take  courage  and  follow 
him  unto  a  place  of  safety.     But,  though  he  take  them 


THE   EXPECTATION   MET.  95 

in  his  arms,  and  carry  them  over  all  the  rough  places, 
yet  is  he  not  thus  as  near  to  them  as  our  Lord  is  unto 
his  own. 

Considering  any  salvation  or  restoration,  we  see  what  it 
really  is  by  considering  what  has  been  marred  or  lost.  If 
there  has  been  a  departure,  then,  on  the  part  of  the 
Saviour,  there  is  a  following  until  he  overtakes.  If  there 
has  been  lost  the  sense  of  our  divine  fellowship,  then  this 
Saviour  appears  unto  us  and  mingles  with  us  in  our  ways, 
as  our  associate,  friend  and  brother.  If  the  very  type  of 
man,  as  a  child  of  God,  has  been  broken  and  perverted, 
then  the  Saviour  so  appears  as  to  show  us  that  type  in 
its  original  freshness  and  glory.  If  the  perversion  has 
developed  into  a  system  of  fractions  and  refractions,  then 
this  Saviour  unfolds  the  true  harmony  of  the  kingdom. 
And  as  we  can  suppose  no  new  or  altered  divine  disposi- 
tion, no  sudden  divine  repentance,  the  appearance  of  the 
Saviour  will  be  only  the  intense  reinforcement  of  divine 
activities  for  man's  redemption  that  have  been  operative 
from  the  beginning.  Always  there  has  been  the  follow- 
ing, always  the  invitation  unto  newness  of  life,  always 
the  full  revelation  of  spiritual  meanings.  The  light  has 
been  in  the  world,  but  the  darkness  hath  apprehended 
it  not :  on  the  divine  side,  full  revelation  —  on  the  human, 
almost  entire  blindness  and  deafness,  though  the  tender 
solicitations  of  the  Spirit  have  reached  the  heart  of 
man  and  so  impelled  its  impulses  and  imaginations 
that,  even  in  the  darkness,  they  have  taken  shadowy 
shapes  and  movements  of  hope. 

What,  then,  is  needed  for  the  efficiency  of  a  divine 
revelation  that  from  the  beginning  has  been  so  full  and 
comprehensive  ?  It  must  be  made  a  human  revelation. 
The  Word  must  become  flesh.  The  Eternal  Son  of  God 
must  become  the  Son  of  Man,  must  show  forth  and  illus- 


96  THE   INCARNATION. 

trate  the  original  human  type  ;  and  the  ever  repeated 
Parables  of  Nature  must  be  translated  into  Parables  of 
human  speech.  The  divine  must  be  completely  veiled  in 
the  human,  so  that  it  may  be  revealed  as  a  human  life, 
and  be  humanly  comprehended.  It  must  illustrate  human 
life  in  full  correspondence  with  the  divine,  and  must  there- 
fore show  forth  all  that  is  possible  to  man  as  the  result  of 
this  union.  Should  the  illustration  of  the  type  in  any  way 
transcend  the  type,  an  element  of  confusion  would  be 
introduced  into  the  very  economy  of  salvation.  As  our 
leader,  he  can  be  and  show  forth  only  that  which  he  calls 
upon  us  to  be  and  show  forth.  If  he  teaches  us  to  pray, 
it  must  be  with  his,  the  Lord's  own,  prayer.  He  saith 
"Our  Father"  just  as  we  should  say  it.  He  takes  the 
same  attitude  to  the  divine  will  that  we  should  take. 
Verily,  he  must  be  so  identified  with  us  that  whatever  is 
done  even  unto  the  least  of  these,  his  brethren,  is  done 
unto  him.  As  incarnate,  he  is  not  a  personation  of  fire, 
or  of  lightning,  or  of  the  majesty  of  the  sea,  or  even  of 
the  power  of  an  angel,  but  simply  and  wholly  man, 
revealing  God  only  as  he  veileth  Him. 


Ill 

But  this  veiling  is  no  disguise.   In  every  one  of  us  there 

is  the  divine  life,  which  includes  every  vital  function  of 

soul  and  body — the  very  life  of  our  life — which 

Veiled      has   been   perverted  by  our  wayward  self-will, 

but  not      (wherein  is  our  freedom,)  and  so  disguised.    But 

in  our  Lord  there  was  no  disguise.     His  will 

was  in  complete  harmony  with  the  divine  will.    And  this 

completeness  of  his   humanity — the  essential  feature  of 

the  Incarnation  —  was   not   only  the   basis   of  a   special 

divine  revelation,  but  was  itself  the  clearest  divine  revela- 


THE   SELF-MANIFEST  DIVINITY.  97 

tion  which  it  is  possible  for  man  to  receive,  the  only  one 
which  would  be  effective  for  his  restoration.  In  this  com- 
plete humanity  only  do  we  see  the  undisguised  divinity. 

The  divinity  of  our  Lord  is  impressed  upon  us  very 
much  in  the  same  way  as  is  the  fact  that  the  sun  shines 
by  his  own  and  not  by  a  reflected  light.  It  is  a  truth 
manifest  of  itself  or  not  at  all.  There  can,  in  the  very 
nature  of  the  case,  be  no  demonstration  thereof,  any  more 
than  there  can  be  of  any  vital  fact.  Any  number  of 
witnesses  to  his  miraculous  works  would  not  give  us  this 
impression,  nor  would  his  own  claim  to  divinity.  Tra- 
dition, though  it  be  the  tradition  of  the  church,  could  not 
establish  such  a  truth.  It  is  not  a  truth  which  we  accept, 
but  which  reveals  itself  We  do  not  take  possession  of  it, 
it  takes  possession  of  us. 

To  one  only  seeing  the  sunlight  there  would  be  no 
apparent  difference  between  it  and  moonhght,  save  in 
degree ;  but,  standing  in  it,  we  feel  another  sort  of  differ- 
ence—  a  difference  in  kind.  To  one  really  receiving  the 
Christ-life,  his  divinity  would  be  immediately  apparent, 
even  if  the  Gospel  nowhere  direcdy  declared  it.  It  is  an 
intuition  concurrent  with  faith,  rather  than  an  article  of 
faith.  Credited  upon  authority,  it  could  have  only  the 
weight  of  that  authority,  and  could  not  stand;  and  yet, 
without  the  support  of  any  authority,  it  would  forever 
assert  itself 

It  is  not  the  divinity  which  gives  authority  to  the  mes- 
sage— this  also  reveals  itself  for  what  it  is;  but,  being 
revealed  in  and  through  the  Christ,  the  divinity  of  the 
Messiah  and  of  his  message  are  manifest  unto  faith  in  a 
single  apprehension.  No  argument  can  help  or  hinder. 
We  cannot  separate  the  message  from  the  Messiah,  since 
divinely  he  is  its  spirit  and  humanly  its  embodiment.  It 
is  altogether  one  round  life,  delivered  unto  us  in  its  indi- 


98  THE    INCARNATION. 

visible  integrity ;  and,  in  our  reception  of  it,  our  faith  is 
characterised  by  the  same  simphcity.  The  moment  we 
try  to  analyse  it,  the  life  departs,  leaving  only  our  own 
dogmatic  thought,  which  is  worthless. 

If  there  be  any  one  phrase  that  could  tersely  and  fully 
express  the  compass  of  that  manifestation  of  the  Eternal 
Word  which  we  call  the  Christ,  it  is  that  one  which  was  so 
frequently  upon  his  lips  — "  the  kingdom  of  heaven  " ; 
and  we  do  not  enter  the  kingdom  without  at  once  being 
conscious  of  the  presence  of  the  heavenly  king.  Standing 
in  the  full  light,  we  cannot  but  recognise  its  source. 

If  the  unfolding  of  this  kingdom  in  the  Christ  had 
simply  reflected  the  wisdom  of  sages  or  even  of  prophets, 
if  it  had  been  the  sum  of  all  the  wisdom  possible,  through 
experience,  to  human  intelligence,  then  it  would  have  been 
as  manifestly  a  human  message  in  its  origin  as,  not  being 
this,  and  being  as  far  above  this  as  the  heavens  are  above 
the  earth,  it  is  manifestly  divine.  If  it  had  followed  or 
sanctioned  the  motives  of  which  all  recorded  human 
development  is  an  illustration,  or  if  it  had  anticipated  all 
that  the  progress  of  human  enhghtenment  and  refinement 
can  ever  attain  by  the  exaltation  and  transmutation  of 
these  motives  to  their  highest  plane  of  operation,  then 
clearly  it  is  a  merely  human  revelation.  Nay,  if  it  had  fol- 
lowed the  lines  of  man's  religious  development ;  if  it  had 
instituted  the  most  sublime  ritual,  free  from  all  idolatrous 
perversion  or  grossness  of  any  sort ;  if  it  had  given  man- 
kind a  higher  code  than  that  of  Moses,  or  greater  proph- 
ecies than  those  of  Isaiah ;  if  it  had  announced  a  higher 
spiritual  philosophy  than  that  of  Plato, —  though  it  had 
proclaimed  that  Love  was  the  fulfilling  of  the  Law, — 
even  thus,  it  would  still  appear  but  as  an  inspired  human 
message,  and  the  Messiah  as  only  a  greater  priest  than 
Melchisedec,  as  the  chief  of  prophets,   as  the  purest  of 


A    NEJV   LIFE.  99 

philosophers.  All  such  manifestations,  however  glorious, 
not  only  lie  within  the  scope  of  human  possibilities,  under 
divine  auspices,  but  would  no  more  seem  to  transcend 
experience  than  the  genius  of  a  Beethoven  or  of  a  Shake- 
speare ;  they  would  not  fulfil  the  spiritual  expectation  of  a 
Saviour.  For  this  expectation,  while  it  has  no  comfort  in 
his  appearing  with  all  the  manifestations  of  omnipotence 
and  omniscience,  or  in  such  a  shape  as  shall  transcend  the 
human  type,  yet  looks  for  something  beyond  the  range  of 
human  experience  —  for  the  perfection  of  the  type  in  One 
who,  while  on  earth  and  wholly  man,  shall  be  "  the  Son 
of  Man  which  is  in  heaven,"  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father. 
This  is  the  expectation  of  the  sons  of  God,  which  our 
Lord  hath  fulfilled. 

We  may  put  aside  the  legend,  as  the  sceptic  calls  it,  of 
his  miraculous  birth,  and  his  miracles  themselves ;  we  may 
ignore  the  assertion  of  his  claims  by  the  evangelists;  we 
may  reject  the  decrees  of  ecclesiastical  councils  —  yet  there 
remains  the  Christ,  at  once  the  completion  of  our  human- 
ity and  the  complete  revelation  of  the  Father.  Here  we 
affirm  nothing  on  grounds  of  authority,  or  of  logic ;  we 
feel,  we  believe.  It  is  an  immediate  impression,  a  vital 
communication. 

And  it  is  the  communication  of  a  New  Life  —  of  a  new 
principle  or  spring  of  action,  (new,  that  is,  unto  human 
experience,)  reversing  the  operation  of  human  energies  at 
their  very  source.  This  new  principle  is  not  one  which 
simply  accelerates  progress  in  lines  already  taken,  or  which 
simply  transmutes  our  life  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  plane 
—  it  is  regenerative.  It  is  operative  only  as  man  is  born 
again.  And  as  the  first  birth  is  associated  directly  with  a 
divine  power,  with  the  Father  of  Spirits,  in  like  manner 
do  we  identify  with  the  same  power  this  regenerative 
principle. 


THE   INCARNATION. 


IV 


It  is  true  that  we  obtain,  by  contrast  with  other  men,, 

a  negative  impression  of  our  Lord's  divinity.     Napoleon 

Yjjg       said,  "  I  know  men,  and  I  tell  you  Jesus  Christ 

Negative    ^^^g  j^q|.  ^  man."     A  still  stronger  feeling  of  this 

Impression  _  . 

of  Christ's  sort  arises  from  a  comparison  of  the  kingdom 
ivinity.  ^y|-(j(,|-j  ciinst  came  to  establish  with  all  the  king- 
doms established  by  the  wisest  and  mightiest  of  earthly 
conquerors,  or  with  all  the  ideal  schemes  of  life  suggested 
by  philosophers  and  reformers.  Such  comparisons  may 
lead  to  a  presumption  or  even  to  a  conviction,  but  not  to 
the  direct  vision  of  the  truth,  which  is  the  reflex  of 
the   new  birth. 

Every  ray  of  vital  heat  and  light  which  proceeds  from 
this  central  sun  of  a  new  (freshly  manifest)  system  sets 
him  apart,  distinguishing  him  so  absolutely  from  all  men, 
who,  either  with  or  without  divine  inspiration,  have  sought 
to  reveal  divine  life  and  truth,  that  we  need  rather  the 
assurance  of  his  humanity  —  that  he  was  "very  man" — 
than  of  his  divinity.  And  it  was  this  assurance  that  he 
sought  chiefly  to  give,  calling  himself  invariably  the  Son 
of  Man — more  desirous  of  convincing  us  that  he  was  in 
very  deed  one  of  us  than  that  he  came  down  from  heaven. 
A  man  claiming  to  be  divine  would,  in  every  important 
respect,  have  reversed  the  attitude  of  this  divine  being 
forever  insisting  upon  his  humanity.  He  would,  at  every 
step,  have  betrayed  the  taint  of  the  worldly  scheme  of  life, 
even  in  his  antagonism  to  that  scheme.  He  would  have 
been  an  ascetic.  His  utterances  of  truths  declared  by  him 
to  be  divine  would  have  taken  the  form  at  least  of  worldly 
wisdom,  would  have  shown  some  measure  of  sophistica- 
tion, some  sign  of  premeditated  art,  of  logical  analysis,  or 


CLEARING-UP    IVORK    OF   CRITICISM.         loi 

of  dogmatism;  he  would  have  laid  stress  upon  arbitrary 
authority,  upon  rules  of  life ;  he  would  have  shown  some 
tendency  toward  the  elaboration  of  a  system,  ethical  or 
tlieological,  and  toward  some  formal  organisation  based 
upon  worldly  motives  and  following  worldly  methods. 

On  the  contrary,  we  behold  a  man  who  never  departs 
from  the  divine  ways  in  attitude  or  action  or  speech. 

Though  we  give  the  rationalist  full  scope  for  his 
destructive  criticism;  though  we  admit  that  the  evangel- 
ists may  have  misquoted  or  misconstrued  his  discourses, 
owing  to  their  own  ignorance  and  perversion  —  yet  is 
there  a  limit  to  this  work  of  demolition.  John  may  have 
given  his  Master's  words  the  tinge  of  his  own  thought ; 
Matthew  and  Mark  may  have  been  so  far  influenced  by 
superstition  (in  a  most  superstitious  age)  as  to  have,  to 
some  degree,  marred  the  perspective  of  their  Memora- 
bilia, by  bringing  to  the  foreground  a  miraculous  element 
which  the  Master  himself  would  have  subordinated ;  still 
there  remains  a  full  body  of  our  Lord's  utterances  — 
of  which  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  representative  — 
before  which  the  critic  himself  stands  in  confessed  impo- 
tence, since  not  only  could  these  utterances  not  have 
been  invented  by  the  evangelists,  but  their  like  had 
never  leaped  from  human  lips  —  so  that  the  truths 
revealed  were  indeed  those  which  "  had  been  hid  from 
the  foundation  of  the  world." 

Thanks,  O  thou  most  unsparing  of  critics,  for  thou  hast  \ 
done  for  Christ  a  greater  work  than  have  all  the  apolo- 
gists of  miracles,  of  tradition,  of  infallible  inspiration; 
for  thou  hast  cleared  away  from  the  matchless  edifice  all 
the  vain  scaffoldings,  all  the  frail  supports  of  merely 
human  construction,  and  yet  the  mighty  temple  re- 
maineth,  founded   upon   the   solid  rock  which  thou  hast 

laid  bare  ;    thou  hast   caused  the  Perfect  Type  to  stand 
10 


102  THE    INCARNATION. 

out    in    shining    light    against    the    imperfection    of    all 
other   types  ! 

It  has  not  been  the  divine  purpose,  in  inspiration,  to 
veil  the  weakness  or  narrowness  or  even  the  perverse  pas- 
sions of  the  human  medium.  There  were  accommoda- 
tions to  the  weakness  of  human  hearts  in  the  Mosaic  law. 
In  David,  in  the  prophets,  in  the  evangelists,  in  the 
apostles,  the  human  mask  is  maintained  with  its  imper- 
fections. It  is  as  if  it  were  intended  that  the  darkness  of 
all  other  revelations  should  be  the  foil  to  the  unalloyed 
brightness  of  the  supreme  and  direct  revelation  in  Christ, 
even  as  an  artist  amasses  clouds  of  blackness  it  he  would 
paint  a  diamond. 

Nevertheless  these  contrasts  lead  only  to  a  negative 
conviction  of  the  divinity  of  our  Lord  —  a  conviction 
through  logical  exclusion.  They  have  a  tendency  to  mis- 
lead, inasmuch  as,  on  the  one  hand,  they  would  seem  to 
exclude  one  so  conspicuously  divine  from  his  humanity, 
while,  on  the  other,  they  would  seem  to  exclude  man  from 
his  divinity.  But,  unto  him  that  is  born  again,  there  is, 
with  his  new  life,  given  him  also  a  new  light,  whereby  he 
sees,  through  the  restoration  of  his  own  humanity,  how 
verily  the  Christ  is  the  whole  man,  and,  by  himself  becom- 
ing a  son  of  God,  how  verily  Christ  is  the  Eternal  Son, 
his  elder  brother,  the  First  Begotten.  In  this  vision,  the 
line  of  separation  between  the  human  and  the  divine  has 
vanished,  not  only  in  our  Lord,  but  also  in  those  who, 
through  the  new  birth,  are  with  him  "  in  the  bosom  of  the 
Father."  It  is  the  union  of  the  Bride  with  the  Bride- 
groom, only  partially  represented,  indeed,  in  the  case  of 
individual  regeneration,  but  to  be  fully  realised  in  the  re- 
generation of  humanity. 


THE   SPECIAL    SONS  HIP.  103 


V 


But  shall  we  say,  then,  that  our  Lord  is  the  Son  of 
God  only  as  is  every  man  that  is  born  again  ? 

The  likeness  of  our  Sonship  unto  his  is  dwelt  upon  and 
magnified,  because   it   is   a   saving   truth;    and,  for  this 
reason,  also,  it  is  especially  vital  and  essential 
as  an  element  of  our  faith.     It  is  this  likeness     Special 
which  is  set  forth  in   the   Incarnation.     When    spfrit'uaf 
Simon    Peter   said    unto    him,    "  Thou   art   the  Apprehen- 
Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God,"  then  "  Jesus 
answered  and  said  unto  him, '  Blessed  art  thou,  Simon  Bar- 
jona;  for  flesh  and  bloodbath  not  revealed  it  unto  thee, 
but  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven.'  "     It  is  one  of  the 
limitations  of  the  Incarnation  that  it  cannot  manifest  that 
wherein  our  Lord's  Sonship  difters  from  ours,  but  only  its 
likeness ;  and  while  this  likeness  is  so  fully  revealed,  for 
our  salvation,  in  the  Emanuel,  the  unlikeness  is  carefully 
veiled  and  guarded,  lest  it  should  be  identified  with  this 
visible  and   temporal  manifestation.     "  Then  charged  he 
his  disciples  that   they  should  tell  no  man  that  he   was 
Jesus   the  Christ."     These  who  were   so   near  unto  him 
had  received  the  new  life  and  a  spiritual  revelation  that 
overleaped  the  limitations  of  flesh  and  blood ;  but  others 
might  be  misled  by  a  premature  acceptance  of  the  truth 
of  his  special  Sonship,  (premature  because  accepted  from 
without,  and  not  through  an  inward  revelation,)  confound- 
ing this  Sonship  with  his  bodily  presence. 

Through  the  Incarnation,  the  Son  reveals  the  Father, 
bringing  Him  near  unto  us,  as  God  dwelling  with  us,  but 
even  this  revelation  suffers  from  the  emphasis  of  the  visi- 
ble ;  and  the  inward  revelation  of  the  Spirit  is  necessary 
to  true  discernment,  so  that  the  Father  shall  not  be  lim- 


104  THE   INCARNATION. 

ited  to  the  earthly  manifestation,  but  shall  be  known  as 
"  our  Father  which  is  in  heaven."  And  the  word  of  the 
Son  concerning  Him  is  the  leading  unto  this  spiritual  dis- 
cernment. So  it  is  only  the  Father  that  knows  the  Eter- 
nal Son,  and  that  reveals  him  unto  those  to  whom  He  has 
Himself  been  shown  by  the  Son  of  Man ;  and  it  is  thus 
that  we  know  "  the  Son  of  Man  which  is  in  heaven." 
And  when  our  Lord  has  ascended  into  heaven,  when  his 
incarnation  is  no  longer  in  the  way  of  that  spiritual  dis- 
cernment unto  which  it  leads,  then,  the  veil  having  been 
rent  in  twain,  the  work  of  the  Son  of  Man  in  the  flesh 
having  been  finished,  the  perfect  spiritual  revelation  is  pos- 
sible. Our  Lord  himself  taught  his  disciples  that  he  must 
first  go  away  before  the  truth  in  all  its  fulness  could  be 
shown  even  unto  them. 

As  the  Incarnation  is  necessary,  because  of  our  weak- 
ness, bringing  the  kingdom  nigh  unto  us,  so  in  order  that 
we  may  spiritually  discern  this  kingdom  as  the  kingdom 
of  heaven,  it  is  equally  necessary  that  the  flesh  should  be 
put  aside  and  that  the  body  of  our  Lord  should  be  removed 
utterly  from  our  sight.  It  is  of  himself  as  incarnate  that 
he  saith  "  the  things  concerning  me  have  an  end  " ;  but 
there  remain  the  things  concerning  him  which  have  no 
end,  which  are  "  eternal  in  the  heavens " ;  and  of  these 
things  which  remain  are  not  only  that  type  to  which,  as 
the  image  of  the  Son  of  Man,  we  are  to  conform,  and  the 
love  wherewith  he  hath  loved  us,  but  also  his  eternal  Son- 
ship  and  the  love  wherewith  the  Father  hath  loved  him 
from  the  foundation  of  the  world. 


THE   INDWELLING    FATHER. 


VI 

There  must  have  been,  as  our  Lord  grew  in  wisdom 
and  in  favor  with  God  and  man,  a  Divine  Sense,  a  direct 
illumination,  entirely  different  from  that  which 
in  other  men  we  call  inspiration  —  a  sense  of  his  ^he  Divine 

Sense 

eternal  Sonship.  This  was  mcommumcable  to  in  Christ, 
others,  except  through  the  revelation  of  it  unto 
them  by  the  same  spirit  which  was  in  him.  What  Simon 
Peter  discerned  through  such  a  revelation  must  have  been 
known  unto  our  Lord  directly.  It  was  not  a  part  of  his 
consciousness,  which  was  wholly  human,  but  rather  com- 
prehended this  consciousness,  making  it,  therefore,  wholly 
divine.  It  was  thus  that  a  directly  divine  revelation 
through  him  was  possible,  transcending  the  limitations 
of  the  Incarnation. 

Insistently  human,  clinging  unto  us  in  his  utmost  exal- 
tation, and  most  tenaciously  unto  the  most  sinful,  it  is  his 
limited  and  incarnate  existence,  the  part  which  he  has  in 
common  with  us,  his  human  consciousness,  which  he  always 
calls  the  "  me."  That  other  and  divine  sense,  which  en- 
compasses his  human  consciousness,  and  which  with  him 
he  would  have  encompass  all  humanity,  he  refers  to  "  the 
Father." 

In  the  Gospel,  all  the  names  of  God — the  Father,  the 
Spirit,  the  Son  —  are  inter-fluent.  Instead  of  definition 
there  is  confusion,  which,  from  a  theological  point  of 
view,  would  seem  to  be  a  careless  confusion.  It  is  the 
divine  seal  upon  the  Divine  Oneness — an  edict  against  all 
attempts  at  division,  discrimination,  or  definition,  against 
the  formation  of  a  fixed  Christian  polytheism.  Thus 
what  is  here  called  the  Divine  Sense  in  our  Lord  (a  sense 
of  divine  potency  and  wisdom)  may  be  regarded  inter- 


106  THE   INCARNATION. 

changeably  as  a  sense  of  the  Spirit,  of  the  Father,  or  of 
the  Eternal  Son.  It  is  moreover  a  sense  of  regenerate 
humanity,  which,  in  our  Lord's  view,  is  identified  with 
him,  glorified  with  the  glory  he  had  with  the  Father  be- 
fore the  world  was,  Sent  even  as  he  is  Sent,  one  with  him 
and  the  Father,  and  to  be  with  him  where  he  is. 

It  is  through  this  divine  sense  that  he  feels  himself  to 
be  "  the  Sent."  It  is  not  so  much  a  sense  of  omnipotence 
and  omniscience  as  of  love.  It  is  his  Father's  kingdom 
that  he  establishes  and  unfolds — a  spiritual  kingdom, 
whose  law  is  Love.  Humanity  has  been  committed  unto 
him  by  the  Father,  who  has  "  given  him  power  over  all 
flesh  that  he  should  give  eternal  life." 


VII 

Whatever  we  may  think  of  those  outward  incidents 
of  our  Lord's  life  —  the  star  in  the   East,  heralding  his 

advent,  the  visit  of  the  Magi,  the  descent  of  the 

Hosannas    ^o^c  upon  him  in  baptism,  and  the  voices  at 

of  the      various  times  speaking  from  the  heavens  and 

confirming  his  special  Sonship  —  whether  we 
regard  them  as  actual  occurrences  or  as  the  creations  of 
an  exalted  imagination,  we  see  in  them  such  concurrent 
fitness  and  correspondence  that  they  never  surprise  us, 
seeming  coincident  rather  than  accidental.  If  the  children 
should  refrain  from  hosannas,  the  very  stones  would  cry 
out.  Not  one  of  these  wonders  is  essential  to  our  faith, 
yet  how  readily  our  faith  leans  to  them!  They  corre- 
spond to  man's  ideas  of  divine  manifestation  rather  than 
to  divine  methods  of  manifestation,  as  shown  in  Nature ; 
and  therefore  do  they  especially  show  what  impression 
our  Lord's  divinity  has  made  upon  the  minds  of  his  fol- 
lowers.    As  grounds  of  faith  they  are  inadequate,  since 


THE   DIl^INE   CONFUSION.  107 

faitli  must  first  exist  in  order  that  they  should  have  any 
significance. 

The  Spiritual  Generation  cannot  be  regarded  as  an 
outward  incident.  In  its  very  nature  it  would  seem  to 
be  especially  concordant  with  faith.  No  other  recorded 
miracle,  save  that  of  the  Resurrection,  rises  to  the  same 
height.  These  two  have  with  each  other  a  special  cor- 
respondence, and  both  are  the  subjects  of  prophetic  ut- 
terance ;  yet  our  Lord  speaks  often  to  his  disciples  of 
the  Resurrection,  but  never  of  his  miraculous  birth ; 
indeed,  he  speaks  of  the  Resurrection  as  the  one  sign 
given  unto  men.  The  one  has  a  vital  meaning  to  our 
faith  which  the  other  has  not.  The  one  is  dwelt  upon 
both  in  the  Gospels  and  Episdes,  while  the  other  is,  in 
the  Gospel  narrative,  simply  mentioned  and  afterward 
ignored. 

They  who  would  lead  us  away  from  our  Lord  by 
denying  his  miraculous  conception,  saying  that  it  is  wholly 
legendary  and  an  afterthought,  only  thereby  draw  us  nearer 
unto  him.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  quite  possible  for  the 
theologian  —  with  an  ulterior  logical  intention  wholly  aHen 
to  the  Gospel  narrative — to  so  far  remove  our  Lord  from 
us  that  we  may  no  longer  say  "  Unto  t^s  a  Son  is  born." 
The  faith  of  children  has  no  stress  of  logic  in  it,  as  has 
a  dogma.  We  may  accept  this  story  of  our  Lord's  birth, 
(which  is,  after  all,  inadequate  to  the  full  expression  of 
our  belief  in  his  divinity,)  without  associating  with  it  logi- 
cal consequences,  and  still  hold  fast  to  the  genealogies  of 
the  Gospel  and  to  the  entire  humanity  of  our  Emanuel. 
If  we  regard  his  own  utterances,  it  is  of  this  he  gives  us 
the  fullest  assurance.  We  are  accustomed  to  make  men- 
tal discriminations,  readily  defining  what  was  unto  him, 
even  in  his  human  consciousness,  indefinable.  What  we 
studiously  separate  he  confounded.     In  him  the  human 


io8  THE    INCARNATION. 

was  united  to  the  divine — "I  and  my  Father  are  one." 
So  through  him  was  this  union  to  be  reahsed  for  all 
humanity.  This  was  his  mission.  Because  of  our  very 
imperfection  we  fail  of  that  divine  confusion  which  was  in 
him,  as  it  is  also  in  the  unsophisticated  children  to  whom 
he  giveth  power  to  become  the  sons  of  God. 

It  is  not  expected  of  the  disciple  that  he  should  be 
more  than  his  lord,  it  is  enough  that  he  should  be  as  his 
lord.  Our  Lord  had  the  following  will  and  the  waiting 
faith.  He  waited  until  his  hour  should  come.  And  the 
divine  power  which  encompassed  him  had  no  jealousy 
in  that  he  so  closely  linked  himself  with  humanity  and 
no  impatience  because  of  the  waiting.  As  the  Lord 
waited,  so  his  disciples  waited.  It  was  not  expected 
that  they  would  at  once  receive  all  truth.  "  Have  I 
been  so  long  time  with  you,  and  yet  hast  thou  not 
known  me,  Philip  ?  he  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the 
Father.  .  .  .  Behevest  thou  not  that  I  am  in  the 
Father,  and  the  Father  in  me?"  But  the  revelation  is 
not  even  yet  perfect — "  the  time  cometh,  when  I  shall 
speak  to  you  no  longer  in  proverbs,  but  I  shall  show 
you   plainly  of  the   Father." 

VIII 

The  Incarnation  involved  the  heritage  of  sin.     If  our 
Lord  was  tempted  in  all  points  hke  as  we  are,  he  must 
have  been  tempted  from  within.     In  his  very 
"^wgfor   birth  he  took  upon  him  our  sin  and  our  infirm- 
a  Perverse  ^^igg — jn  SO  far  as  sin  and  infirmity  are  insepa- 
rable from  our  nature.     No  man  inherits  sin  but 
only  the  aptitude  which,  in  all  other  men  save  our  Lord, 
has  become  sin.     In  taking  our  flesh,  Jesus  assumed  an 
estate  inferior  to  that  of  Adam,  not  only  as  to  this  inher- 


A    DIVINELY  GUARDED    CHILDHOOD.  109 

itance,  but  in  that  he  came  into  a  perverted,  worldly  sys- 
tem, and  was  subject  to  its  temptations. 

As  to  his  environment,  it  was  comparatively  fortunate. 
If  he  had  been  a  native  of  Jerusalem,  he  would  have  been 
subject  to  peculiar  temptations.  He  would  have  been 
constantly  within  the  atmosphere  of  the  temple  and  under 
the  influence  of  its  imposing  ceremonial.  It  was  doubtless 
more  consistent  with  the  divine  purpose  concerning  him 
that  his  docile  and  peculiarly  susceptible  childhood  should 
be  passed  in  the  hill-country  of  Judea,  among  the  shep- 
herds, and  in  loving  communion  with  Nature.  In  his 
youth,  he  was  not  only  divinely  guarded  but  divinely 
stimulated.  The  voices  of  the  Prophets — native  to  this 
north  country — reached  him  here.  The  simple  worship 
of  the  Synagogue  was  congenial  to  all  heaven-born 
impulses.  No  spot  on  earth  could  have  been  chosen 
more   favorable   to   his   gracious   growth. 

And  when  every  year  he  went  up  with  his  kindred  to 
Jerusalem,  and  the  worldliness  of  the  state  religion  came 
within  his  observation,  what  wonder  that  it  prompted 
many  questions  which  he  put  to  the  learned  doctors  in 
the  temple,  or  that  from  his  strong  prophetic  nurture  he 
should  have  many  answers  for  their  questions.  There 
was  a  spirit  in  him  growing  up  to  that  point  when  he 
should  take  the  scourge  in  hand  and  drive  out  of  the 
sacred  enclosure  the  beasts  brought  there  for  sale,  and 
overturn  the  tables  of  the  money-changers,  and  bid  those 
who  had  sacred  doves  there  to  be  sold  to  "  take  these 
things  away."  This  authoritative  action  was,  indeed,  one 
of  the  earliest  public  manifestations  of  the  divine  power 
in  him. 

But  beneath  the  surface  of  this  quiet  country  life,  what 
divine  tumult  in  our  Lord's  bosom!  It  was  not  the 
tumult  of  a  strained  conflict ;  but  forever  there  was  that 


no  THE   INCARNATION. 

in  the  nature  which  he  had  assumed  which  rose  up  in  him 
to  meet  the  divine  sense  in  him  —  discords  momentarily 
held  in  suspense  but  immediately  resolved.  There  were 
no  problems,  no  questionings,  no  solicitudes,  for  he 
always  listened  unto  the  Father  and  did  His  will.  The 
discords  in  the  world  without  came  also  into  the  field 
of  this  divine  sense  and  were  in  like  manner  resolved. 
Across  these  waves  ever  rising,  ever  subsiding,  what 
expansion,  what  awful  enlargement  of  view,  out,  out  on 
every  side  to  the  far  horizon  of  a  new  kingdom ! 

IX 

But  now  one  mighty  wave  arises,  so  high  that  the  evan- 

geUst  will  have  it  that  Satan  taketh  him  up  into  a  high 

mountain;  but  it  is  mightier   than  Satan!     In 

The  Great  conncctiou  with  his  mission  on  earth,  with  this 

!ion!^  very  divine  sense  in  him,  there  comes  to  him  a 
critical  moment  of  trial  such  as  never  before  or 
since  came  to  any  man.  "To  be  tempted  of  the  Devil!" 
Nay,  the  very  Prophets  are  here  with  their  prefigurement 
of  a  limitless  and  endless  kingdom!  The  moment  has 
come  when  he  for  the  first  time  feels  the  power  over  all 
flesh  committed  unto  him.  "  And  unto  him  every  knee 
shall  bow."  In  this  moment  of  exaltation,  there  rises  out 
of  the  depths  of  his  human  nature  a  Voice,  that  even  in 
its  temptation  towers  mountain  high,  and  that,  if  followed, 
will  bring  a  deluge  of  blood  upon  the  earth  and  give  us 
a  Mahomet  in  the  place  of  the  Christ. 

The  manifestation  is  but  for  a  moment  —  this  flashing 
upon  his  vision  of  "  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  and  the 
glory  of  them  in  a  moment  of  time."  The  divine  power 
encompasses  him ;  the  Father  is  with  him,  with  no  other 
help  than  He  gives  in  such  a  crisis  to  every  one  who  does 


HE    OVERCAME    THE    IVORLD.  in 

His  will;  the  mighty  wave  subsides  —  this  harshest  of  dis- 
cords has  been  resolved  in  the  peace  of  the  kingdom. 
And  when  our  Lord  goes  into  the  Synagogue,  there  shall 
be  handed  him  a  book,  and  he  shall  read  therefrom  the 
true  prophecy:  "The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  me, 
because  he  hath  anointed  me  to  preach  the  gospel  to  the 
poor  ;  he  hath  sent  me  to  heal  the  broken-hearted,  to 
preach  deliverance  to  the  captives,  and  recovering  of  sight 
to  the  blind,  to  set  at  liberty  them  that  are  bruised,  to 
preach  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord."  And  when, 
toward  the  end  of  his  earthly  career,  he  makes  his  tri- 
umphant entry  into  Jerusalem,  it  is  upon  an  ass's  colt, 
with  children  following,  singing  hosannas.  But  never  is 
he  called  king  save  by  the  Magi  at  his  birth,  and  in  the 
mocking  legend  upon  his  cross. 

X 

There  was  something  in  our  Lord's  nature,  then,  which 
was  to  be  overcome,  to  be  reconciled  to  the  very  kingdom 
he  came  to  establish  —  nay,  in  an  especial  sense 
he  overcame  the  world,  including  his  own  heri-  j^e  Father 
tage  of  its  sin,  so  that  he  said  of  himself  that  the       ^^^^ 

.  .  .  Sanctified." 

Father  had  sanctified  him.  The  world  which 
draws  all  men  into  its  vortex  had  its  hold  also  upon  him. 
In  all  these  years  of  sanctification  through  the  indwelling 
Father,  it  was  that  which  was  being  sanctified,  as  well  as 
the  sanctification  itself,  which  prepared  him  for  his  great 
mission.  He  must  know  in  his  own  heart  the  strength  of 
the  world ;  and  in  some  respects  he  knew  it  as  no  other 
man  has  ever  known  it.  All  that  was  in  his  humanity  rose 
up  to  meet  the  divine  sense,  and,  though  it  had  no  mastery 
over  him,  it  was  wholly  known  in  every  shade  and  varia- 
tion of  its  perversity.     This  knowledge  was  clearer  because 


112  THE   INCARNATION. 

of  the  indwelling  God;  clearer  also  because  he  received 
ever  more  and  more  fully  the  divine  life  —  for  one  knows 
not  the  strength  of  the  drawing  of  this  world  by  yielding 
thereunto  but  by  his  withdrawing.  The  sinful  life  blinds 
the  soul  to  the  knowledge  of  sin,  while  the  presence  of 
the  Spirit  convinceth  thereof. 

Our  Lord  at  every  step  stood  upon  a  precipice.  The 
difference  between  him  and  other  men  was  that  he  saw 
the  yawning  depth  beneath,  by  the  light  from  above. 
He  ever  heard  the  voice  calling  unto  him  from  the  depth, 
"  Cast  thyself  downward,"  and  he  knew  the  voice  as 
one  that  rose  out  of  his  human  nature.  The  precipice 
itself  represented  unto  him  the  depth  to  which  that  na- 
ture had  fallen  and  the  readiness  of  the  falling;  and  the 
voices  from  its  lowest  deep  were,  through  his  complete 
assumption  of  that  nature  and  his  share  in  its  awful  past, 
familiar  voices.  It  was  not  only  a  part  of  his  Passion,  but 
the  very  essence  of  his  Compassion,  that  he  should  drink 
the  cup  offered  him  to  its  dregs  —  that  he  should  fully 
comprehend  the  intimacies  of  sin  as  a  bosom-companion, 
which  slept  not,  but  clung  unto  him,  drawing  him  through 
every  sensitive  fibre  of  his  being,  and,  not  being  able  to 
draw  him  down,  was  lifted  up  with  him  into  that  divine 
light  and  love,  that  in  the  sanctification  of  his  nature 
illustrated  the  sanctification  of  humanity.  It  is  thus  that 
he  is  in  a  peculiar  sense  our  elder  brother. 

We  see  then  what  our  Lord  meant  when  he  said,  "  Why 
callest  thou  me  good  ?  There  is  none  good  but  one,  that 
is,  God."  We  see  also  with  what  intimate  comprehension, 
from  his  own  knowledge,  he  traces  sin  to  its  true  source, 
in  the  human  heart,  out  of  which  are  the  issues  of  life. 


PERFECTNESS    IVITH   FRAILTY.  113 


XI 

The  sinlessness  of  our  Lord  is  in  the  fact  that  there  was 
in  him  no  development  of  a  sinful  nature.     He  knew  hate 
at  its  very  source,  since  it  had  shown  itself  unto 
him,  but  it  was  no  sooner  manifest  than,  coming  siniessLss. 
into  the  divine  light,  it  was  slain  of  love.     He 
knew  the  perversity  of  human  nature,  but  in  his  life  there 
was  no  perversion.      His  will  was  in  harmony  with  the 
divine  will,  and,  though  inheriting  degenerate  tendencies, 
his  life  reversed  the  direction  of  all  degenerate  develop- 
ment, restoring  for  us  the  broken  type  of  humanity.     This 
union  with  the  Father  is  not  presented  to  us  as  something 
suddenly  perfected,  but  as  a  growth,  and  unto  the  same 
perfectness  through  growth  are  we  also  called. 

It  is  not  a  perfectness  which  excludes  the  possibility  of 
human  frailty.  There  are  moments,  even  in  our  Lord's 
life,  when  the  frailty  of  the  human  nature  is  manifest. 
Such  a  moment  was  that  in  Gethsemane  when  the  cup, 
though  not  put  aside,  Avas  held  in  a  trembling  hand.  He 
met  death  not  as  a  Stoic,  nor  with  the  strained  muscle  of 
the  gladiator ;  the  agony  of  the  Garden  was  that  of  relax- 
ation—  of  submission  at  once  to  the  physical  tremor, 
which  had  its  way,  and  to  the  will  of  the  Father,  which 
must  also  have  its  way.  Then  there  was  that  other 
moment,  on  the  cross,  when  he  cried  ovit  with  a  loud 
voice,  "  INIy  God,  my  God,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken  me  ?  " 
a  moment  when  the  divine  presence  was  eclipsed  by 
heavy  darkness;  and  to  him,  unto  whom  this  presence 
had  been  the  Hfe  of  his  life,  what  darkness !  It  is  the 
final  illustration  of  the  lesson  he  had  so  often  taught 
his  disciples — that  his  word  and  his  work  were  not  of 
himself,  and   that  without  the    Father   he  was   nothing. 


114  THE   INCARNATION. 

Behold  him  then,  whose  spiritual  name  is  the  Eternal 
Son,  in  this  one  moment  of  mortal  agony,  left  helpless 
and  nameless,  lest  any  man  should  identify  his  saving 
power  with  his  bodily  presence  ! 

XII 

And   yet  is   his   flesh — that  in  itself  is  nothing — the 

veil,    as    St.    Paul    calls    it,    the    transparency,    through 

which  shineth  the  glory  of  God,  that  illuminates 

The  Glory  and    savcs    the   world.     Hitherto   Nature   had 

Flesh,     been   this  veil,  through    which  the  same  glory 

had   shined,  but  was  only  dimly  seen  of  men. 

Now  is  this  glory  intensified  in  the   body  of  our  Lord, 

who,  as  the  Bridegroom,  is  flesh  of  our  flesh.     And  power 

hath  been  given  him  over  all  flesh. 

It  is  only  in  this  view  that  we  may  comprehend  the 
miracles  of  our  Lord  —  those  wondrous  manifestations  of 
divine  love  which  are  for  the  most  part  works  of  healing 
and  restoration.  They  are  prompted  by  his  compassion, 
but  he  shows  this  power  only  as  the  occasion  for  its  exer- 
cise is  directly  in  his  way.  In  many  cases  those  who  are 
healed  are  enjoined  to  secrecy.  He  is  sohcitous  lest  he 
should  seem  to  make  a  display  of  this  power,  thus  appeal- 
ing to  the  superstitious  that  seek  after  a  sign.  He  teaches 
his  disciples  that  it  is  not  he  but  the  Father  that  doeth 
these  things,  and  that  the  same  power  is  theirs  through 
faith.  He  is  more  jealous  for  man's  divinity  than  for  his 
own.  Why  should  he  show  what  is  possible  to  God  ? 
It  is  what  is  possible  to  man,  through  faith,  that  he 
illustrates. 

And  this  power  is  committed  unto  him — as  represent- 
ing humanity  and  at  the  same  time  revealing  the  Father — 
without  measure,  including  the  forgiveness  of  sins.     This 


COMMUNICATED    FORGIVENESS.  115 

is  shown  in  the  heaUng  of  the  man  sick  of  the  palsy. 
Before  the  heaUng  he  declared  the  forgiveness.  And 
when  those  about  him  marvelled,  asking,  "  Who  can  for- 
give sins  but  God  alone  ?  "  he  said,  "  Whether  is  easier  to 
say, '  Thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee ' ;  or  to  say, '  Arise,  and  take 
up  thy  bed  and  walk '  ?  But  that  ye  may  know  that  the  Son 
of  man  hath  power  upon  earth  to  forgive  sins,  (he  saith 
unto  the  sick  of  the  palsy,)  I  say  unto  thee,  'Arise,  take  up 
thy  bed  and  go  unto  thy  house.'"  Our  Lord  here  seems 
to  recognise  some  connection  between  the  sin  and  the  dis- 
ease, and  he  makes  the  cure  complete,  remitting  as  well  as 
healing.  In  all  cases  the  divine  power  in  him  to  heal  was 
shown  as  a  sign  of  the  saving  power.  His  compassion  for 
the  multitude  was  not  only  because  they  had  bodily  in- 
firmities but  because  they  were  scattered  abroad  as  sheep 
having  no  shepherd.  He  saw  them  flocking  about  him 
that  he  might  heal  them,  and  he  healed  many.  But  he 
saw  a  larger  gathering,  that  no  man  could  number,  the 
flock  of  the  forgiven. 

And  as  he  gives  his  disciples  the  power  of  healing,  he 
gives  them  also  this  power  of  forgiveness.  His  gospel  is 
a  gospel  of  forgiveness.  The  healing  is  incidental  and  sec- 
ondary. The  power  of  our  Lord  to  give  deliverance  to 
the  captives  is  not  confined  to  the  loosing  of  material 
bonds;  it  includes  a  complete  deliverance,  the  liberty  of 
the  soul. 

Forgiveness  is  here  something  more  than  a  declaration 
of  absolution,  else  it  were  not  an  exercise  of  power.  All 
sin  is  forgiven  by  the  Father,  and  unconditionally ;  but  in 
Christ  there  is  something  more  than  a  message  unto  men 
declaring  this  divine  absolution ;  it  is  a  part  of  his  "  power 
over  all  flesh "  that  he  communicates  the  absolution,  as 
unto  the  man  sick  of  the  palsy.  The  power  enters  into 
this  communication — a  life  which  revives  the  palsied  soul 


ii6  THE   INCARNATION. 

as  it  does  the  palsied  limbs.  One  may  grope  blindly 
upon  the  earth  under  an  unseen  heaven  of  forgiving  love. 
But  when  the  Lord  passes — he  who  has  taken  our  flesh 
that  he  may  reveal  the  Father  by  a  vital  communication 

—  then  this  one  stricken  with  infirmity  will  stand  up 
straight  before  God ;  he  will  take  up  his  bed  and  walk. 
Communicated  forgiveness  is  salvation. 

In  the  Resurrection  of  our  Lord — the  one  great  miracle 
that  is  an  essential  and  vital  part  of  his  revelation — this 
"power  over  all  flesh"  has  its  most  glorious  meaning. 
Here  is  this  veil  of  the  flesh  most  transparent,  and  the 
divine  power  is  indeed  communicated   without   measure 

—  the  communication  of  an  endless  life.  For  behold,  this 
flesh  is  dead,  utterly  helpless  and  powerless  of  itself,  yet 
God  raiseth  it,  loosing  the  bonds  of  death  itself  All  the 
meanings  of  the  Licarnation  and  of  the  Kingdom  itself 
have  here  their  consummation.  It  figures  the  new-birth, 
this  rising  from  the  dead  through  the  quickening  Spirit. 
The  sacrament  of  Baptism  receives  from  it  new  signifi- 
cance— though  it  is  his  peculiar  baptism,  not  of  water  but 
of  flame.  It  shows  not  only  the  life  given  unto  men  but 
the  "  abundant  life,"  life  overflowing  its  set  bounds.  It 
teaches  the  lesson  of  all  growth.  The  seed  must  die  that 
it  may  have  new  life.  "  It  is  sown  in  weakness,  it  is  raised 
in  strength."  But  for  what  the  Resurrection  is  in  itself — 
the  revelation  of  an  endless  life — it  transcends  all  these 
teaching  images. 

What  a  transparency  —  this  thin  veil  disclosing  immor- 
tality !  What  appearings  and  disappearings  !  Now  he  is 
seen  of  Mary  Magdalen,  and  she  must  not  touch  him,  lest 
her  great  faith  be  confused,  being  drawn  down  to  his  visi- 
ble presence  instead  of  looking  after  him  into  heaven. 
Then  again  he  is  seen  of  Thomas,  unto  whose  weak  faith 
he  lends  his  pierced  hands  and  side. 


"THE    FLESH    PROFITETH    NOTHING."  117 

It  is  in  the  Resurrection  that  we  most  clearly  see  at 
once  the  limitations  of  the  Incarnation  and  its  measureless 
glory,  which  all  flesh  shareth. 

In  the  Gospel  narrative  there  is  no  mention  of  any  fea- 
ture of  our  Lord's  personal  appearance.  His  countenance 
is  dislimned,  that  we  may  behold  only  his  spiritual  like- 
ness. His  flesh  and  his  blood  are  ours  in  a  holy  sacra- 
ment,—  in  the  symbol  of  bread,  which  signifies  our  divine 
nourishment,  and  of  wine,  which  signifies  our  divine  lib- 
eration,—  and  yet  he  says  unto  us,  "  The  flesh  profiteth 
nothing.  The  words  that  I  speak  unto  you,  they  are  the 
life." 

XIII 

What  is  the  meaning  of  this  —  that  his  words  are  the 
life  ?  He  saith  that  these  are  the  bread  from  heaven,  that 
heaven  and  earth  shall  pass  away,  but  they  shall 
not  pass  away.  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread 
alone,  but  by  every  word  which  proceedeth  from  the 
mouth  of  God.  It  is  the  truth  that  shall  make  us  free, 
and  his  word  is  truth. 

Of  this  that  we  have  called  the  Divine  Sense  or  Divine 
Power,  and  which  our  Lord  calls  the  Father  in  him,  the 
indwelling  God,  we  have  here  the  consummate  revela- 
tion. As  the  Incarnation  is  the  intensification  of  all  em- 
bodied truth,  so  the  articulate  word  is  the  intensification 
of  the  Eternal  Word. 

Speech  is  the  distinctive  manifestation  of  human  vitality. 
The  life  which  sleeps  in  the  mineral,  which  dreams  in  the 
vegetable,  and  which  awakes  in  the  animal,  in  man  speaks. 
Speech  is  the  explosion  of  the  subdest  of  vital  forces,  in- 
formed by  the  highest  intelligence.     Homer  gives  it  wings, 

and  verily  it  has  for  its  medium  that  which  is  the  realm  of 
11 


ii8  THE    INCARNATION. 

all  winged  creatures,  the  freest  and  most  universal  fluid  in 
nature ;  and  if  by  resistance  its  vibrant  flight  be  broken 
short,  it  is  reflected  in  the  echo  —  this  return  showing  how 
truly  it  has  kept  its  vocal  shape.  The  air  is  full  of  these 
flying  voices,  in  quick  exclamations  —  prayers  and  curses 
—  voices  that  in  their  quickest  flight  take  the  shape  of 
song,  piercing  the  heavens.  It  is  that  which  is  spoken 
(fatiim)  which  is  decreed,  and  in  the  beginning  it  is  sig- 
nificant of  the  creative  act.  What  wonder,  then,  that 
speech  is  held  to  be  divine,  that  the  pentecostal  spirit  is 
shaped  in  tongues  of  flame,  and  that  the  sum  of  all  divine 
manifestation,  articulate  or  inarticulate,  should  be  called 
the  Word? 

Now,  since  he  who  has  taken  our  flesh  has  also  taken 
our  speech,  if  he  be  indeed  the  Word  become  flesh,  we 
shall  see  that  the  words  which  he  speaks  are  of  God,  so 
that  through  them  the  limitations  of  the  Incarnation  are 
transcended  in  a  living  current  that  has  free  course  every- 
where and  forever ;  for,  while  the  fleshly  appearing  is  only 
for  a  season,  the  Word  is  the  seed  whose  field  is  the  world, 
perennially  sown  and  harvested  until  the  end. 

The  utterances  of  our  Lord  may  not  be  separated  from 
his  incarnation ;  their  life  is  in  his  life ;  they  are  illustrated 
by  all  that  was  accompUshed  in  him  upon  the  earth.  If 
the  Word  is  the  seed,  his  earthly  life  as  the  Son  of  Man 
was  the  first  fruits  thereof.  None  the  less  is  it  true 
that  it  is  the  Word  which  especially  designates  him  as 
the  divinely  Sent. 

XIV 

We  have  no  touchstone  of  any  divine  trait  save  in 
Nature  until  our  Lord  appears;  and  it  is  only  as  we 
see  that  the  God  indwelling  in  his  life  and  word  is  the 


THE   NATURE-CHRIST.  119 

same  as  the  God  immanent  in  Nature  that  we  know  him 
as  the  incarnate  Word.     He   illustrates  all  the  spiritual 
meanings  of  Nature,  and  the  study  of  these  in 
connection  with  him  is  the  most  suggestive  and  Correspond- 
fruitful    that    could    occupy   the    minds    of  his     Nature. 
followers. 

If  man  had  from  the  beginning  lived  a  spiritual  life, 
having  the  fulness  of  the  knowledge  and  love  of  God, 
such  would  have  been  his  constant  study,  only  the  normal 
human  type  —  as  Man,  Woman,  and  Child  —  would  have 
taken  the  place  now  held  by  our  Lord  in  this  wonderful 
harmony.  Man  in  the  image  of  God  would  have  stood 
for  God  in  the  image  of  man.  St.  Paul  has  very  signifi- 
cantly indicated  the  distinction  between  the  two  types, 
calhng  the  first  man  Adam  a  "living  soul"  and  the  last 
Adam  a  "  quickening  spirit."  From  the  first  type,  reflect- 
ing the  divine  image  and  traits  in  Nature,  man  fell,  becom- 
ing spiritually  dead;  through  the  second,  which  assumed 
the  degenerate  human  nature  and  at  the  same  time 
revealed  the  Father,  man  is  restored  to  harmony  with 
God  and  His  Nature. 

Nature  is  not  silent  as  to  the  spiritual  life.  The  lack  is 
in  us,  not  only  in  that  we  have  not  ears  to  hear,  but  in 
that  we  confront  Nature  with  the  questioning  mind  rather 
than  with  the  receptive  spirit.  It  is  a  part  of  our  degen- 
eracy that  we  put  the  wrong  questions  to  Nature,  or, 
rather,  that  we  are  satisfied  with  her  disclosures  of  types 
and  laws  and  forces,  and  that,  suggestive  as  these  disclo- 
sures would  be  to  our  spiritual  insight,  we  insistently  choose 
to  limit  them  to  our  material  uses  or  to  the  satisfaction  of 
our  mental  curiosity. 

Thus  it  is  that,  even  so  long  after  the  advent  of  the  last 
Adam — the  quickening  spirit — we  have  still  so  narrow 
and  unfruitful  comprehension  of  Nature  and  her  spiritual 


120  THE   INCARNATION. 

intimations.  We  have  not  been  quickened  by  the  Spirit  to 
the  higher  quest  either  in  our  study  of  Nature  or  in  our 
contemplation  of  Christ,  who  is  her  counterpart  in  the 
great  harmony  of  divine  truth.  Physical  science  has,  in 
its  naked  analyses — expressed  in  classifications,  formulae, 
definition  of  proportions,  appreciation  of  forces  —  fallen 
short  of  the  higher  truths  of  Nature,  as  Christian  Theol- 
ogy, in  its  definition  of  attributes  and  hypostases,  has  fallen 
short  of  the  divine  love  and  wisdom  revealed  in  our  Lord. 
From  the  merely  mental  study  of  Nature  we  arrive  only 
at  a  conception  of  Power  and  Design,  and  of  these  simply 
with  reference  to  the  effects  produced.  It  is  true  that 
incidentally  there  is  evolved  a  spiritual  suggestion — as  in 
connection  with  the  immensity  of  the  universe  disclosed 
by  the  telescope — and  the  soul  of  man  is  awakened  and 
expanded.  Often,  too,  in  our  experiments  with  the  subtle 
forces  of  Nature,  there  is  flashed  upon  us  the  reflex  of  a 
great  spiritual  truth.  The  poet  has  a  nearer  approach  to 
the  divine  wisdom  in  Nature,  and,  to  an  interpreter  like 
Ruskin,  her  skies  and  her  waters  become  scrolls  of  beau- 
tiful truths — scrolls  that  are  palimpsests,  written  over  and 
over  day  after  day. 

But  what  are  these  divine  traits  of  Nature,  appealing  to 
something  higher  than  a  mental  or  aesthetic  interest,  and 
having  a  spiritual  significance,  and  how  are  these  traits 
reflected  in  our  Lord  ? 


XV 

First  of  aU,  it  is  the  spontaneity  of  Nature  that  im- 
presses our  spiritual  sensibility.  Every  unfolding  is  as 
fresh  as  if  it  were  the  first  offspring  of  life ;  after  endless 
repetition  this  utter  newness  of  life  is  that  of  an  original 
creation.     This  directness,  or  immediateness,  of  Nature's 


THE   NATURAL    UNFOLDING  121 

processes  reflects  the  unconscious  innocence  of  childhood, 
which  "taketh  no  thought." 

The  same  trait  is  characteristic  of  our  Lord's  sayings. 
They  are  not  lore ;  they  betray  no  premeditation,  no 
memory  of  something  said  before,  no  conscious 
reflection  of  any  sort.  We  never  think  of  him  ^of°Nat"urr 
as  having  learned  what  he  teaches,  as  having 
in  any  way  caught  it  from  another,  save  as  he  has 
received  it  directly  from  the  Father.  His  speech  shows 
no  backward  movement  of  thought — it  is  as  direct  as 
flame.  His  Parables  are  involutes  that  unfold  as  spon- 
taneously as  the  leaves  in  springtime.  The  Beatitudes 
in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  are  spiritual  flowers.  They 
open  upon  us  like  the  lilies.  They  are  not  elaborations 
or  logical  sequences,  though  heavenly  wise  and  vital.  So 
far  are  they  from  all  the  maxims  drawn  from  experience 
that,  to  any  one  regarding  them  in  the  light  of  experience, 
they  are  paradoxes,  though  unto  the  spiritual  sense  they 
are  intuitions. 

His  sayings  not  only  reflect  the  spontaneity  of  Nature, 
but  they  directly  lead  us  to  the  contemplation  of  this 
divine  trait  as  one  that  we  should  adopt  —  as  characteris- 
tic of  the  spiritual  life.  "  Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field, 
how  they  grow;  they  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin." 

The  great  perversion  of  our  life  is  that  we  have  not  fol- 
lowed the  leading  of  the  Eternal  Word  in  Nature.  In  the 
place  of  this  spontaneity  we  have  put  the  conscious  effort 
of  our  self-vv^fll,  the  result  of  which  is  an  artificial  life.  We 
prefer  to  "  take  thought,"  to  build  up  our  life  on  a  notional 
basis,  to  give  prominence  to  the  operations  of  our  under- 
standing, which  are  mediate  and  secondary.  These  opera- 
tions are  not  contrary  to  or  inconsistent  with  the  highest 
spiritual  life,  but  in  that  Hfe  they  are  hidden,  being  sub- 
ordinated, as  they  are  in  those  processes  of  our  individual 


122  THE    INCARNATION. 

or  associative  life  which  most  nearly  simulate  those  of 
Nature,  as  in  walking  or  in  the  making  of  a  language. 
And,  even  in  those  processes  which  are  most  artificial, 
where  the  conscious  effort  is  most  apparent,  Nature  has 
so  much  her  way  with  us,  that  through  constant  repetition 
our  skill  and  training  become  automatic,  simulating  the 
spontaneity  of  Nature.  In  all  education  the  conscious  is 
relegated  to  the  unconscious,  and  the  result  is  what  we 
call  a  "  Second  Nature." 

Now  our  Lord  leads  us  not  to  the  second  but  to  the 
first  Nature,  not  to  an  artificial  simulation  of  her  Kfe, 
but  to  the  same  spontaneity,  through  regeneration. 

XVI 

When  our  Lord  saith  unto  Nicodemus,  "  Except  a  man 
be  bom  again,  he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God,"  thus 
announcing  the  germinative  principle  of  the  spir- 
The  Ger-    jj-y^}  jjfg^  j-jg  jg  at  oncc  in  accord  with  Nature  and 
Principle,    in  contradiction  with  all  the  maxims  of  human  ex- 
perience.    Philosophy  teaches  us  that  character 
is  transformed  by  a  change  of  environment,  by  education 
and  training.    But  not  so  the  Master,  who  sees  that  new 
wine  cannot  be  put  into  old  botdes,  that  the  whitewashing 
of  a  sepulchre  in  no  wise  cleanses  it,  that  the  new  growth 
must  be  from  the  very  seed.    The  dynamics  of  Nature  is 
substituted  for  the  mechanics  of  all  human  systems  of  re- 
form.   In  Nature  there  is  no  growth  that   is  not  a  new 
growth — new  from  the  root. 

The  kingdom  of  heaven  could  not  be  engrafted  upon 
human  civilisation  or  upon  any  existing  system  of  religion. 
No  reformation  through  any  external  motive  or  through 
the  adoption  of  any  system  of  rules  would  have  been  a 
redempdon.     Man   must    be    born   again,   not    only   for 


THE   ABUNDANT  LIFE.  123 

newness  of  life,  but  for  tenderness.  He  must  have  the 
Child-heart — the  heart  of  a  child  of  God.  And  our  Lord 
was  come  for  this — not  only  as  the  quickening,  life- 
giving  spirit,  but  as  the  Type  to  which  the  new  life 
must  conform. 


XVII 

He  is  the  Lord  of  Life.     "  I  am  come  that  ye  might 
have  life,  and  that  ye  might  have  it  more  abundantly."    It 
is  in  this  abundance  as  well  as  in  the  newness  of 
life  that  he  is  manifest  as  one  with  the  Father.       ^he  Son 

completes 

"  My  Father  worketh  hitherto  and  I  work."  the  Father's 
Now  if  we  consider  the  Father's  work  in  Nature     ^°,\'^r'" 
—  this  manifestation  of  the  Eternal  Word — it 
is  not  work  as  we  understand  work,  but  an  overflowing, 
spontaneous  vitality. 

In  Nature  there  is  nothing  inert ;  her  ways  are  the  ways 
of  life.  Her  chemistry  is  so  constant,  so  universal,  that 
the  web  of  her  veil  shows  no  interstices.  The  only  breaks 
and  patches  in  her  robe  are  those  which  man  has  made  — 
and  these  are  obstinate  blotches,  despite  the  certainty  that 
finally  her  fluxion  must  resolve  all  that  man  makes  and 
strives  to  conserve.  She  puts  foremost  the  best  of  her  life, 
the  supplest  and  most  delicate,  having,  it  would  seem,  a 
special  delight  in  her  frailest  tissues,  minding  not  that  they 
be  fleeting  and  evanescent,  so  they  be  but  young  and 
tender.  She  hides  her  hardness,  covering  it  with  living 
tendrils,  and  her  chemistry  of  death  as  unremitting  as  that 
of  life,  so  that  it  seems  but  the  backward  movement  of  her 
shuttle,  brings  the  brightest  hues  into  her  web  —  showing 
the  flaming  banners  of  her  autumn  fields.  She  hurries 
forward  her  processes  of  dissolution — quick  in  death  as 
she  is  in  life  —  blowing  with  violent  winds  upon  all  her 


124  THE   INCARNATION. 

funeral  pyres,  the  sooner  to  put  out  of  sight  all  evidences 
of  her  decay. 

All  of  human  faith  in  a  divine  salvation  that  had  ever 
been  in  the  world  had  been  a  response  to  this  living 
Nature  as  the  manifestation  of  a  loving  Father,  a  taking 
of  this  Nature  to  heart,  an  answer  to  her  morning,  when 
the  night  was  past,  and  to  her  springtime,  after  the  deso- 
lation of  winter.  It  had  been  a  response  not  to  naked 
forces,  or  to  those  mental  statements  or  generalisations 
which  we  call  laws,  but  to  ministering  vitalities,  to  a 
saving   life. 

And  in  its  ultimate  yearning,  its  utmost  reach  of  hope, 
this  faith  of  men,  as  we  have  seen,  so  associated  their 
own  life  with  the  divine  as  to  give  the  latter  a  human  em- 
bodiment—  foreshadowing  the  incarnate  Word — and,  in 
their  sacred  Mysteries,  made  bread  and  wine  the  sacra- 
ments of  this  vital  union.  In  this  we  see  how  the  Spirit 
of  Love  strove  with  men  —  that  the  Father  wrought  not 
only  in  Nature  but  in  Human  Nature,  to  bring  them  into 
harmony,  and  so  to  make  humanity  one  with  Him. 

In  the  very  incarnation  of  the  Word,  then,  there  is  the 
continuation  and  fulfilment  of  the  Father's  work  from 
the  beginning.  It  is  not  simply  a  correspondence  to 
Nature,  but  a  union  therewith  —  a  union  which  includes 
humanity. 

We  see,  also,  why  our  Lord,  when  he  brings  us  in  his 
sayings  face  to  face  with  the  divine  life  and  light  in 
Nature,  revealing  her  deepest  spiritual  meanings,  seems 
himself  to  be  that  life  and  light.  He  has  no  sooner 
brought  us  into  the  light  than  straightway  it  illumines 
him;  and  the  pulse  of  the  life  that  has  quickened  us 
beats  for  us  only  in  him.  "  No  man  hath  seen  the  Father 
at  any  time."  It  is  the  Son  that  revealeth  Him  ;  and  be- 
hold, it  is  the  Son  that  is  revealed  unto  us  by  the  Father. 


THE    IVORD  AND   THE   LIFE.  125 

Such  is  this  transfiguration  of  Christ  through  the  Word, 
which  is  from  the  Father,  that  we  comprehend  what  the 
Apostle  Paul  means  when  he  saith,  "  in  him  dwelt  the 
fulness  of  the  godhead  bodily."  The  Christ-nature  is 
seen  as  the  Nature-Christ. 


XVIII 

If  our  Lord  had  in  his  life  alone,  as  the  Son  of  Man, 
revealed   the    Father — Uving  sinlessly,   heahng  the  sick, 
raising  the  dead,  giving  his  hfe  for  his  brethren, 
and  being  himself  raised  from   the   dead — the  ^he  Realism 

...  o'  JNature 

limitations  of  his  incarnation  would  have  thwarted  and  of  the 
his  mission ;  faith  in  him  would  have  been  con-  ^"""^^  ^'^^' 
fined  to  those  who  were  the  immediate  witnesses  of  that 
life,  and  it  would  have  been  a  limited  faith ;  he  could  not 
have  been  the  saviour  of  humanity  save  by  an  inward 
compulsion.  Without  the  word  there  is  no  salvation 
through  faith.  "The  words  that  I  speak  unto  you  they 
are  the  life." 

On  the  other  hand  the  word,  without  him,  would  have 
no  vitahty.  If  it  were  written  upon  the  sky  as  upon  a 
scroll  in  letters  of  fire,  it  would  be  of  less  effect  than  what 
in  flame  is  there  already  written.  Spoken  unto  men  out 
of  the  clear  sky,  or  in  the  annunciations  of  angels,  it 
would  be  scarcely  more  effective  than  voices  heard  in 
dreams.  Such  are  not  the  divine  methods  of  communica- 
tion. The  literal  word,  loose  in  the  world,  without  root, 
has  in  it  no  virtue.  Voices  reaching  us  thus  at  random 
would  surprise  and  bewilder  us  as  would  the  phenomena 
of  Nature,  broken  loose  from  living  ways  and  vital  cur- 
rents, like  sourceless  streams  or  sapless  branches,  or  like 
grapes  gathered  from  thorns  or  figs  from  thistles. 

In  Nature  the  continuity  is  never  broken ;  it  is  the  con- 


136  THE    INCARNATION. 

tinuity  of  life.  In  all  her  spontaneity  and  directness, 
every  vital  current  has  a  medium,  which  is  itself  vitalised 
thereby.  There  is  no  dens  ex  machina.  While  there  is 
freedom  of  movement,  there  are  no  loose  wheels.  All 
force  is  spiritual,  yet  is  there  no  manifestation  of  force 
without  embodiment.  This  is  the  Realism  of  Nature. 
Our  Lord  signifies  this  when  he  saith,  "  Ye  shall  know  the 
tree  by  its  fruits."  It  is,  indeed,  because  of  a  like  continu- 
ity in  human  nature  that  there  can  be  no  new  life  with- 
out regeneration.     This  is  the  Reahsm  of  the  Kingdom. 

Shall  we  then  suppose  that  the  divine  Word  lacks  this 
vital  continuity  ?  It  is  fiirst  the  vital  communication 
through  every  embodiment  of  Nature,  to  which  human 
faith  is  a  response ;  and,  both  in  Paganism  and  in  Hebraic 
Prophecy,  this  faith  reaches  forward  to  an  embodiment  of 
the  Word  as  the  Son  of  Man.  The  ultimate  utterance 
of  the  Word  is,  therefore,  through  the  Christ,  in  whom 
there  is  a  twofold  Realism,  since,  not  breaking  the  con- 
tinuity with  Nature,  he  yet  appears,  not  out  of  the  clouds, 
but  taking  the  seed  of  man. 

XIX 

"  Grace  and  truth  came  by  Jesus  Christ" — not  only 

through    his    gracious    works   but   through    the    gracious 

words   that  proceeded  out  of  his  mouth,   that 

Glorified     were  not    written,   like   the   law,   on  tables  of 

'"        stone,  but  were  to  find  their  lodgment  in  the 

hearts  of  men,  who,  quickened  thereby  into  new 

Hfe,  were  to  behold   his  glory,  the  glory  as  of  the  only 

begotten  of  the  Father.     And  this  glory  transfigures  all 

material  Nature,  so  that  we  see  it  not  as  material  but  as 

spiritual ;    transfigures  the  body  of  our  Lord  so  that  it 

becomes  our  heavenly  nourishment ;  and  also  transfigures 


THE   RESTORATION   OF  SENSIBILITY.  127 

all  flesh  —  for  it  dissolves  all  things  as  by  fire — so  that  in 
him  every  creature  is  lifted  up  as  into  the  very  bosom  of 
the  Father :  all  laws  reach  their  divine  unity  in  the  Law 
of  Love,  which  is  at  once  the  bond  of  the  universe  and 
the  liberty  of  the  sons  of  God. 

Through  this  glory  of  the  flesh,  sensibility  has  its  spirit- 
ual restoration.  It  is  not  the  mind  that  is  next  the  spirit, 
but  the  body.  Our  Lord,  though  assuming  a  degenerate 
nature,  lifts  up  that  nature  to  a  type  more  glorious  than 
that  of  Adam,  so  that  the  purity  of  innocence  is  eclipsed 
in  the  white  light  of  the  all-dissolving  flame  of  his  baptism 
of  love. 

Through  his  saving  word,  and  through  his  power  over 
all  flesh  to  give  eternal  life,  he  has  visited  us.  And  once 
having  been  seen,  nought  can  efface  his  divine-human 
countenance,  radiant  with  the  love  which  casteth  out  fear. 
That  type,  having  once  been  manifest  upon  the  earth,  can 
no  more  pass  away  than  can  his  words  pass  away,  until 
all  be  fulfifled. 


XX 

In  the  light  of  this  transfiguration.  Beloved,  we  compre- 
hend our  personal  relation  to  him  who  is  the  Lord  of  Life. 

Now  if  any  man  says,  "  Come  unto  me    ...    I  am  the 
Way,  the  Truth,  the  Life   .    .    .    He  that  believeth  in  me 
shall  not  perish  but  shall  have  everlasting  life 
.    .    .    He   that   hath   seen   me    hath   seen   the     ^jative  °" 
Father   .    .    .    Follow  me    .    .    .    Take  my  yoke    Personal 

Appeal. 

upon  you    ...    Ye  believe  m  God,  believe  also 
in  me    .     .     .     All  power  is  given  unto  me  in  heaven  and 
on  earth,"  our  attention  is  arrested  by  this  direct,  author- 
itative voice,  and  almost  instinctively  we  turn  to  salute 
the  Master.     His  loving  tone  has  pierced  our  inmost  need. 


128  THE    INCARNATION. 

Is  it  not  Life  that  we  lack  ?  Who  is  there  that  waits  not 
for  some  angel  to  stir  the  Hfe-giving  waters  ?  And  here 
Life  is  offered.  And  though  he  who  speaks  be  the  lowli- 
est of  all  men,  devoid  of  material  possessions,  having  not 
where  to  lay  his  head,  all  the  more  will  we  look  up  to 
him,  expecting  the  more  of  the  heavenly  for  what  he 
lacketh  of  the  earthly. 

Of  all  men  that  have  lived  upon  the  earth  there  has 
been  but  one  who  has  uttered  such  speech.  Others  have 
laid  down  conditions  of  life,  in  creeds  and  philosophies, 
or  have  stimulated  men  to  the  struggle  for  hfe  through 
good  works  and  penances,  but  he  alone  has  said,  "I  am 
the  Life." 

The  appeal  to  the  human  heart  is  as  direct  and  author- 
itative as  that  of  Nature,  who  has  in  the  same  winning 
vv-ays  offered  herself  as  the  divine  life  from  the  beginning. 
But  her  offer  is  incomplete;  for  Nature,  in  its  largest 
sense,  includes  humanity,  and  human  nature  is  not  only, 
through  its  degeneration,  blind  and  unresponsive  to  the 
spiritual  meaning  and  leading  of  what  we  call  the  material 
universe,  but  hears  not  and  answers  not  the  voice  of  the 
Spirit  of  Love  and  Truth  that  strives  within  men.  Thus 
lacking  hfe,  no  man  could  say  unto  men,  "  I  am  the  life"; 
and  there  is  no  redemption  of  humanity  until  every  man 
can  say  this  to  every  other.  But  our  Lord  could  say  it, 
because  he  was  not  only  one  with  Nature  but  one  with 
the  Father;  and  all  the  regenerate  say  it  after  him,  re- 
ceiving the  same  life  that  was  in  him,  each  being  the 
Christ  unto   all  men. 

He  does  not  say  these  words  until  he,  "the  first-born 
of  many  brethren,"  has  been  not  only  sanctified  but  trans- 
figured and  glorified  through  his  full  reception  of  the 
divine  Hfe.  There  is  no  room  for  mysticism  here.  The 
new  life  of  the  regenerate  is  the  very  life  he  hath,  having 


THE   REAL  PRESENCE.  129 

the  same  oneness  with  Nature  and  with  the  Father. 
There  is  not  one  divine  Hfe  in  Nature,  and  another  in 
Christ,  and  another  in  the  children  of  the  Kingdom,  but 
it  is  all  one  —  the  Hfe  from  God.  The  very  essence  of 
our  Lord's  teaching  is  that  his  hfe  and  all  hfe  is  from 
God.  Nor  is  there  room  here  for  theological  speculation; 
for,  in  the  glory  that  we  share  with  our  Lord,  the  visible 
is  lost  in  the  invisible  and  eternal;  there  is  no  longer  a 
distinction  between  the  material  and  the  spiritual,  or  be- 
tween the  human  and  the  divine.  The  Life  concerns 
itself  not  with  the  Notional  but  only  with  the  Real. 

We  cannot  receive  the  Christ  without  receiving  the 
Life.  "He  that  hath  the  Son  hath  life."  The  expres- 
sions used  by  him  to  illustrate  our  personal  relation  to 
him  are  not  mental  but  real.  He  is  the  Good  Shepherd, 
who  careth  for  the  sheep,  and  the  sheep  know  him  and 
hear  his  voice.  Forever,  as  the  Lord  of  Nature,  he  is  the 
Universal  Shepherd,  whose  flocks  are  worlds  and  systems 
of  worlds.  But  he  has  a  nearer  and  more  vital  relation  to 
the  faithful  —  yet  looking  ever  to  the  heavenly  pastures. 
He  is  the  vine  and  we  are  the  branches.  It  is  a  heavenly 
vintage.  The  root  of  the  vine  for  him,  and  for  us  in  him, 
is  the  divine  life.  "Abide  in  me  as  I  abide  in  the  Father." 
EVen  so  St.  Paul  saith  "our  hfe  is  hid  with  Christ  in 
God."  As  our  nourishment  is  from  Nature,  who  forever 
saith,  "Take,  eat;  this  is  my  body,"  holding  forth  her 
bread  and  wine  to  man,  so  unto  us  he  is  the  bread  which 
came  down  from  heaven.  How  often  do  we  think  of  him 
as  breaking  bread  —  the  attitude  so  familiar  to  his  dis- 
ciples that  he  was  known  unto  them  thereby  after  his  Res- 
urrection. Before  he  connected  this  breaking  of  bread 
and  pouring  of  wine  with  his  death  in  their  thoughts,  he 
frequently  spoke  of  them  as  signifying  typically  the  direct 
reception  of  life  through  him.     They  will  remain  the  ever- 


I30  THE   INCARN/iTION. 

lasting  souvenirs,  real  and  vital,  and  in  no  sense  mystical 
or  allegorical,  until  he  come.  "  Blessed  are  they  that  hun- 
ger and  thirst  after  righteousness."  But  here  he  stands 
for  righteousness,  and  we  are  to  hunger  and  thirst  for  him. 
What  a  countersign  of  faith  he  gave  unto  the  Canaanitish 
woman  who  plead  for  the  crumbs  from  the  Master's  table! 
This  table  has  always  been  spread  before  men,  but  here 
the  Lord  of  the  feast  is  present.     It  is  the  heavenly  feast. 

So  in  all  these  ways  there  is  the  vital  continuity  —  there 
is  no  notional  leap  —  yet  always  there  is  the  divine  uplift- 
ing, the  heavenly  exaltation. 

We  emphasise  this  realism,  this  absence  of  the  notional, 
on  the  one  hand,  or  of  the  mystical,  on  the  other,  because 
it  is  the  real  that  is  unto  the  spiritual  as  body  unto 
soul,  and  is  nearest  thereunto.  The  current  of  divine  life 
does  not  reach  us  through  any  mental  mediation,  but  is 
direct  through  our  Lord  —  an  immediate  and  vital  com- 
munication.    This  is  the  Real  Presence. 

XXI 

There  is  no  supernatural  revelation.*    Every  manifes- 
tation of  the  Divine  Life  is  at  once  natural  and  spiritual. 
Every  natural  operation  is  as  miraculous  as 
Our  Lord's  ^j^y  ^^^  ^g  called  supcmatural,  and  under  the 

Resurrection 

reveals  latter  designation  is  included  much  that  is  simply 
what  Nature  anomalous  and  monstrous.     Our  Lord's  miracles 

intimates. 

were  in  harmony  with  the  divine  methods  and 
were  an  illustration  of  the  divine  life,  which  is  love.  They 
were  always  reparative,  never  destructive.  If  they  excited 
wonder,  it  was  because  men  comprehended  not  the  power 

*  This  is  not  a  denial  of  Supernatural  Being.  But  we  know 
Being  through  its  manifestation  only,  and  this  manifestation  is  its 
nature. 


NATURE'S  INTIMATION  OF  THE  RESURRECTION.   131 

of  the  divine  life.  This  overflowing,  ever  new  and  ever- 
lasting life  was  especially  shown  in  our  Lord's  Resurrection. 
So  far  from  reversing  any  law  of  Nature  this  miracle  of 
the  Resurrection  is  the  seal  of  his  oneness  with  Nature. 
But  for  this  reappearance,  this  reincarnation,  he  would 
have  seemed  less  than  Nature,  would  have  missed  the 
crowning  correspondence  of  his  life  to  hers,  and  would, 
moreover,  have  fallen  short  of  the  complete  illustration  of 
the  saving  power  of  the  divine  life  in  man.  From  the  be- 
ginning, night  had  followed  day  and  winter  had  followed 
summer — but  always  night  had  given  place  to  a  new 
dawn  and  winter  to  the  freshness  of  spring-time — symbols 
of  the  resurrection  even  in  the  Pagan  faith.  But,  in  his 
own  type,  no  such  definite  sign  had  ever  been  given  to 
man.  He  confronted  death,  and  was  no  more  seen  upon 
the  earth — the  place  which  had  known  him  knew  him  no 
more.  For  all  her  generations  outside  of  man.  Nature 
had  proclaimed  the  endless  renewal  of  life.  In  his  own 
type,  our  Lord  proclaimed  this  for  man,  bringing  Immor- 
tahty  to  Hght — so  that  he  truly  saith,  "I  am  the  Resurrec- 
tion and  the  Life."  Death  is  swallowed  up  in  Life.  Thus 
is  illustrated  the  continuity  of  life  not  only  for  a  generation, 
for  a  single  embodiment,  a  single  shaping  of  the  type,  but 
forever.  This  everlastingness  of  life  is  not  a  concern  of 
time.  The  shape  of  life — that  alone  is  in  time,  as  it  is 
in  space.  It  is  not  matter  which  is  eternal,  but  spirit. 
Matter  endures,  the  type  persists,  life  itself  is  eternal.  Yet, 
through  this  heavenly  exaltation,  this  glory  of  the  Resur- 
rection, not  Humanity  alone,  but  all  Nature  is  lifted  up-, 
so  that  the  mortality  of  all  flesh  is  shown  as  solvent,  plastic 
unto  the  persistent  type,  which  is  endlessly  renewed  from 
glory  to  glory ;  and  the  duration  of  all  matter  which  is  its 
death,  is  lost  in  the  softness  of  new  beginnings  of  growth 
from  strength  unto  strength. 


132  THE    INCARNATION. 

As  the  Lord  of  Life,  Christ  never  teaches  us  the  con- 
tempt of  hfe.  Whatsoever  offendeth  —  that  is,  whatsoever 
is  in  the  way  of  hfe — is  to  be  cast  from  us.  We  are  not 
to  fear  them  that  kill  the  body ;  it  is  only  spiritual  death 
that  is  to  be  feared.  To  shun  this  and  to  turn  unto  life 
is  to  repent ;  and  even  in  repentance  we  are  not  to  dwell 
with  our  mortal  failure  and  add  mortification  to  mortifi- 
cation, accumulating  death.  "  Let  the  dead  bury  their 
dead,  and  come  and  follow  me."  Leaving  behind  us  this 
body  of  death,  we  press  forward  to  our  "high  calling," 
which  is  unto  life. 

XXII 

The  Divine  Life  is  always  and  everywhere  a  saving 

power.     It  is  such  essentially,  as  being  a  renewing  life. 

It  is  regeneration,  indeed,  that  is   first,  salva- 

nTcWenui   tion  being  incidental.     Our  Lord  does  not  say, 

to  the      "  Ye  will  not  come  unto  me  that  ye  may  have 

Life 

salvation,"   but,    "Ye    will    not  come  unto  me 
that  ye  may  have  life." 

The  spiritual  law  is  the  same  as  the  natural :  that  the 
new  excludes  the  old.  The  remission  of  sins  is  a  vital 
operation  of  the  new  life.  It  is  not  remission  as  of  a 
debt,  in  the  human  sense  of  debit  and  credit.  In  such  a 
sense  we  can  no  more  be  debtors  unto  God  than  we  can 
become  His  creditors.  We  are  taught  to  pray,  "  Forgive 
us  our  debts  as  we  forgive  our  debtors."  It  is  understood 
that  this  prayer  is  uttered  by  the  children  of  the  Kingdom ; 
and  unto  these  none  can  be  indebted,  since  they  give  for 
the  asking  and  with  no  thought  of  return.  The  pro- 
phetic or  spiritual  interpretation  of  even  the  Mosaic  law 
condemned  not  only  usury  but  the  acceptance  of  sureties 
for  payment.     The  word  "payment"  does  not  belong  to 


THE   REAL    REMISSION.  133 

the  language  of  the  Kingdom.     God  has  no  debtors,  even 
as  we  should  have  none.     He  has  no  account  with  men. 

"The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die";  and  it  has  this  in 
common  with  one  who  has  been  seized  and  imprisoned 
for  debt  or  trespass — that  it  is  in  bonds  and  in  prison, 
held  in  captivity  by  this  spiritual  death.  It  is  unto  this 
hard  master  that  the  sinner  is  a  debtor.  It  is  in  the  king- 
dom of  this  world,  and  within  the  circle  of  its  peculiar 
system  of  righteousness,  that  there  is  debt  —  aye,  and  that 
there  is  payment  unto  the  uttermost  farthing.  "If  thine 
eye  offend  thee" — if  it  be  one  of  the  bonds  of  this  cap- 
tivity—  "pluck  it  out  and  cast  it  from  thee.  If  thy  hand 
offend  thee  cut  it  oft"  and  cast  it  from  thee."  This  is  not 
mortification,  a  penance  by  which  one  is  freed  from  debt 
unto  God,  or,  through  supererogation,  becomes  His  cred- 
itor, but  the  surgery  that  prevents  mortification.  Unto  the 
softness  of  the  divine  spirit  there  is  no  bond  of  debt,  or 
of  captivity ;  here  the  only  possible  bond  is  that  of  love ; 
the  only  seizure  here  is  that  of  the  divine  life  which 
releases  us.  Here  we  stand  face  to  face  with  the  Lamb 
of  God,  who  healeth  all  our  infirmities,  who  forgiveth  all 
our  sins.  And,  this  forgiveness  is,  as  we  have  seen,  not 
simply  a  declaration  of  absolution,  but  a  vital  communi- 
cation from  the  Lord  of  Life.  It  is  a  real  remission.  God 
does  not  cease  to  regard  us  and  treat  us  as  having 
sinned  —  He  has  not  from  the  beginning  so  regarded 
and  treated  us — but  His  life,  received  by  us,  dehvers  us 
from  sin.     It  is  not  only  a  truth  that  we  are  free,  but  the 

truth  hath  made  us  free. 
12 


134  THE   INCARNATION. 


XXIII 


In  considering  our  Lord's  relation  to  sin,  by  which  we 

call  him  our  Saviour,  we  must  regard  it  in  the  light  which 

so  illumines  him  that  he  says,  "  I  am  the  Truth." 

Eternal  We  must  put  aside  all  worldly  conceptions  of 
God  based  upon  a  system  of  human  conven- 
tions antagonistic  to  the  truth.  We  must  pass  outside  of 
Pilate's  judgment  room,  outside  of  the  circle  of  human  ju- 
risprudence, where  the  truth  is  mocked  and  scourged,  and 
so  far  away  that  we  may  not  hear  Pilate's  question,  "  What 
is  truth  ?  "  In  the  spiritual  world  there  are  no  problems. 
There  the  truth  unfolds  itself  to  all  who  follow  living  ways. 
"  He  that  doeth  His  will  shall  know  the  doctrine."  They 
who  seek  salvation  in  unvital  ways,  through  a  system  of 
their  own  devising,  who  feed  upon  the  dry  husks  of  their 
own  speculation,  behold  not  the  truth  —  they  have  opin- 
ion. To  these  all  life  is  a  problem.  The  clear  vision  is 
unto  the  pure  in  heart  —  unto  babes  and  sucklings. 

Whither  our  Lord  leads.  Nature  also  leads ;  and  often 
we  behold  in  Nature  an  expansion  of  the  truth  which  he 
has  revealed  in  intense  clearness  and  in  a  glory  that  is 
vitally  communicable  unto  us. 

Thus  it  is  with  the  truth  as  to  the  relation  of  the  divine 
life  to  sinful  human  nature.  This  truth,  as  it  is  manifest 
in  Nature,  can  never  be  fully  comprehended  so  long  as 
we  entertain  that  philosophical  view  which  removes  Na- 
ture from  her  immediate  relation  to  the  divine  life,  or  in 
any  way  distinguish  between  her  life  and  it.  But  when 
we  behold  God  as  in  His  world,  we  see  that  He  has 
always  borne  man's  sins,  and  has  always  been  his  saviour. 

No  man  can  put  forth  his  hand,  whether  for  evil  or  for 
good,  that  he  does  not  thereby  make  God  his  helper.     It 


THE   EVERLASTING    PASSION.  135 

is  the  everlasting  divine  Passion — that  man  forever  makes 
God  his  associate  even  in  his  mistakes,  his  brutaUties,  his 
crimes.  And  in  all  this  God  is  his  saviour,  in  that  while 
He  suffers  the  abuse.  He  has  ever  in  view  the  right  use  as 
ultimate,  and  strives  for  this  restoration.  He  ever  stands 
between  man  and  the  consequence  of  even  his  wilful  mis- 
doing. Let  a  man  inflict  upon  himself  a  wound,  let  him 
injure  himself  by  excesses  :  he  is  indeed  in  the  way  of 
death  —  but,  lo,  all  the  strength  of  this  indwelling  God 
seeketh  his  relief,  is  set  to  the  healing  of  his  bruises,  ac- 
commodating itself  to  the  perverse  ways  he  has  chosen, 
in  some  cases  transmuting  poison  into  nourishment,  will- 
ing not  that  any  should  perish.  The  mark  which  he  sets 
upon  Cain  is  for  his  protection.  Our  sin  is  forever  the 
burden  of  His  care.  In  our  madness  He  patiently  awaits 
the  sane  thought  and  purpose.  If  He  permits,  and  be- 
comes the  suffering  partner  of  man's  evil  deeds,  it  is  with 
a  view  to  righteousness  beyond  —  the  righteousness  of  the 
Kingdom  —  to  that  association  with  humanity  in  which 
He  delighteth,  man's  happiness  therein  being  the  reflex 
of  the  divine  joy.  He  loveth  and  suffereth  in  the  one 
case  —  man's  pain  being  the  reflex  of  His  passion;  in  the 
other  He  loveth  and  rejoiceth.  Helping  in  all  our  ways. 
His  ultimate  purpose  is  one  of  salvation.  Say  not,  then, 
that  in  Nature,  in  the  operation  of  the  Eternal  Word, 
there  is  no  healing  and  no  forgiveness. 

Behold  what  long-suffering  the  Eternal  hath  had,  from 
the  beginning,  of  man's  abuse  and  torture  of  His  power  — 
all  the  pure,  sweet  currents  of  His  loving  life  made  turbid 
and  turned  awry  through  their  mingling  with  the  perverse 
currents  of  a  rebellious  humanity,  running  away  from  God. 
Yet  He  pursueth,  following  man  through  every  tortuous 
path  of  folly  and  vice  and  even  into  the  charnel-house  of 
his  spiritual  corruption. 


136  THE    INCARNATION. 

But  he  foUoweth,  not  with  accusation  and  condemna- 
tion but  with  love,  offering  at  every  step  a  free  forgive- 
ness and  wooing  all  souls  to  the  acceptance  of  His  grace. 

As  our  Lord  saith,  "  I  come  not  to  condemn  the 
world,"  so  in  Nature  there  is  nothing  condemnatory, 
nothing  punitive.  We  cannot  bring  into  her  realm  the 
terms  of  our  artificial  life.  Here  we  are  not  under  arbi- 
trary commandments,  but  under  laws  of  life  and  growth. 
God's  love,  not  accepted  by  men,  becomes  in  them  what 
they  have  made  of  it ;  and,  being  out  of  harmony  there- 
with, they  comprehend  it  not.  Thus  it  is  that  men  be- 
come the  accusers;  it  is  they  that  judge,  when  they  belie 
His  loving  pressure  upon  them  and  think  of  Him  as  a 
wrathful,  avenging  Presence,  before  which  they  must  hide 
their  faces.  They  translate  pains  into  penalties,  while 
pain  is  the  sign  which  He,  who  judgeth  not,  giveth  us  for 
our  saving.  His  pain,  reflecting  His  suffering,  compas- 
sionately warns  us  that  we  are  in  the  way  unto   death. 

But  if  we  heed  not  this  warning,  still  will  He  follow, 
suffering,  and  putting  forth  His  hand  to  save;  and  the 
further  we  wander,  the  more  we  also  suffer,  until  our  pain 
becomes  the  worm  that  dieth  not  and  the  flame  of  His 
love  the  fire  unquenchable  to  consume.  But  it  is,  indeed, 
in  the  very  charnel-house  of  death  that  His  wondrous 
power  is  especially  shown,  when  He  calleth  upon  the 
dead  to  come  forth  in  their  grave-clothes.  Even  as  His 
judgments  are  away  up  out  of  our  sight,  untranslatable 
into  the  terms  of  our  jurisprudence,  so  is  there  no  meas- 
ure for  His  unspeakable  love. 

When  we  become  utterly  blind  and  deaf,  so  that  we  no 
longer  see  Him,  or  hear  His  voice  in  the  signs  of  Nature, 
He  is  not  weary  of  following.  Behold  how  closely  He 
presseth  upon  us,  taking  our  very  flesh,  our  nature,  our 
speech,  and  calling  unto  us  anew  in  our  own  language 


THE    PATHOS    OF  DIVINE  ANGER.  137 

what  He  hath  been  calHng  from  the  beginning,   "  I  am 
not  come  to  condemn,  but  to  save." 

Ah,  hard  pursuit !  It  giveth  him  no  rest.  He  hath  not 
where  to  lay  his  head.  As  good  old  Bishop  Andrewes 
says,  "it  bringeth  on  a  sweat  of  blood"  —  nay,  the  very 
shedding  of  his  blood — all  for  our  dehverance,  for  the 
remission  of  our  sins  !  Panting  with  mortal  exhaustion, 
he  with  his  last  breath  forgiveth  his  tormentors.  But 
Golgotha  is  only  a  halting-place.  Death  hath  no  power 
to  interrupt  his  loving  quest.  Hath  he  followed  us  to 
the  very  grave  ?  Yet  will  he  rise  and  follow  on  to  the  very 
gates  of  heaven  —  or  rather,  he  will  lead  thitherward,  for 
the  love  which  followeth  the  sinner  leadeth  the  redeemed. 

XXIV 

But,  Beloved,  we  must  beware  of  unwholesome  senti- 
mentalism  in  our  thought  of  God's  love  as  shown  either  in 
Nature  or  in  our  Lord. 

There  are  in  Nature  indications  of  a  divine     J^^? 

Loving 

anger — an  anger  born  of  love  offended  and  Anger, 
outraged.  It  is  not  an  accidental  manifestation. 
Those  upon  whom  the  tower  of  Siloam  fell  were  not  worse 
than  others.  It  is  incident  to  all  wrong-doing,  even  as 
are  pain  and  remorse,  whereof  it  is  a  part.  It  is  an  ele- 
ment in  the  swelling  pathos  of  the  divine  long-suffering. 
It  enters  not  only  into  what  man  suffers  by  reason  of  his 
perversion,  but  also  into  the  suffering  of  the  victims  of 
such  perversion — the  enslaved  and  the  oppressed — mov- 
ing them  to  righteous  revolution.  He  who  taught  us  to 
turn  the  other  cheek  to  the  smiter  and  to  overcome  evil 
with  good,  said  also,  "  I  am  not  come  to  bring  peace  but 
a  sword."  There  is  a  resistance  which  is  not  of  hatred 
or  of  revenge,  but  of  a  divine  motion  within  us. 


138  THE   INCARNATION. 


XXV 

There  is  no  need  of  an  atonement  to  reconcile  God 

unto   man.     The  sufferings   of  our    Lord,    including  his 

death,  were,  as  we  have  seen,  but  the  manifesta- 
The  '  ' 

Sacrifice    tion  in  the  flesh  of  the  divine  suffering  from  the 

Ch°rist  beginning.  Our  sins  have  ever  been  borne  by 
him.  It  is  only  when  they  are  remitted  that  he 
ceases  to  bear  them.  He  is  the  lamb  of  God,  not  the 
scapegoat. 

We  cannot  pass  from  the  terms  of  the  Mosaic  law  or  of 
the  Levitical  ritual  directly  to  those  of  the  Kingdom. 

Both  in  prophecy  and  in  the  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom, 
love  is  preferred  to  sacrifice.  When  our  Lord  had  ex- 
pounded the  law  as  summed  up  in  the  love  of  God  and 
the  love  of  man,  and  the  Scribe  assented,  saying  that  such 
love  is  more  than  all  whole  burnt-offerings  and  sacrifices, 
Jesus  answered  him,  "  Thou  art  not  far  from  the  kingdom 
of  God."  Several  times  he  spoke  of  his  death,  but  never 
as  a  sacrifice.  He  is  the  good  shepherd  who  layeth 
down  his  life  for  the  sheep.  Greater  love  hath  no  man 
than  this,  that  he  lay  down  his  life  for  his  brethren.  His 
death  is  not  the  redemptive  work,  but  —  especially  in 
connection  with  the  following  resurrection  —  the  comple- 
tion on  earth  of  that  work  —  the  testament  of  his  love, 
the  seal  of  a  new  covenant.  "  The  hour  is  come  that 
the  Son  of  man  should  be  glorified "  [referring  to  the 
resurrection].  "Verily,  verily  I  say  unto  you,  except  a 
corn  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground  and  die,  it  abideth 
alone ;  but  if  it  die  it  bringeth  forth  much  fruit.  And 
I,  if  I  be  lifted  up  from  the  earth,  will  draw  all  men 
unto  me."  Our  thoughts  are  by  these  sayings  carried 
away  as  far  as  possible  from  Levitical  associations,  and 


THE   PASCHAL  FEAST.  139 

are  brought  as  near  as  possible  to  a  purely  natural  as- 
sociation. And  we  are  impressed  in  the  same  way  by 
what  he  says  at  the  last  supper  —  the  occasion  being 
identical  with  the  feast  of  the  Passover.  The  paschal 
lamb  was  not  a  sin-offering.  He  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  speaking  of  his  body  as  the  bread  from 
heaven,  of  which  whosoever  eateth  should  not  henceforth 
suffer  hunger,  adding  that  whosoever  should  drink  of 
his  blood  should  not  thirst  again.  His  body,  his  blood, 
his  whole  incarnate  existence,  was  given  for  the  life  of 
men  and  for  their  deliverance  from  sin.  Now,  finally, 
over  the  already  familiar  symbols,  he  says  of  the  bread, 
"  It  is  my  body  which  is  given  for  you,"  and  of  the 
wine,  "  It  is  the  new  testament  in  my  blood,  which  is 
shed  for  you,   for  the  remission  of  sins." 

Yet  in  the  deepest  spiritual  sense,  the  death  of  our 
Lord  is  a  sacrifice  "  of  sweet-smelling  savour "  unto 
God.  But  we  must  revert  to  the  primitive  idea  of 
sacrifice  —  that  of  a  love-feast  in  which  God  is  the 
guest  and  associate  of  man.  In  this  uplifted  Christ 
we  have  the  most  exalted  realisation  of  this  idea.  It 
is  here  upon  the  cross  that  the  Son  is  especially  one 
with  the  Father,  fulfilling  to  the  uttermost  His  behest, 
and  drawing  all  men  unto  him  in  the  same  oneness. 
Here  in  Christ,  God  is  not  being  reconciled  unto  the 
world,  but  is  reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself,  bring- 
ing His  children  into  that  association  with  Him  which 
constitutes  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

And  all  the  faithful  are  partakers  of  our  Lord's  death  — 
of  his  sacrifice.  It  is  thus  that  we  follow  him,  taking  up 
our  cross,  and,  joined  unto  him,  become  an  acceptable 
offering  unto  God,  so  that  we  are  associated  with  him  — 
both  in  his  life  and  his  death — in  his  redemptive  work, 
even  as  we  are  partakers  of  his  resurrection. 


140  THE    INCARNATION. 

In  no  mechanical  or  dramatic  sense  are  our  sins  imputed 
unto  him,  or  his  righteousness  unto  us.  Our  union  with 
him  is  vital.  As  he  has  really  borne  our  sins,  so  is  his 
righteousness  (which  is  not  ethical  but  spiritual)  really 
ours,  as  the  life  of  the  vine  is  the  Ufe  of  the  branches. 
Whether  indeed  we  be  associated  by  faith  with  him,  we, 
of  necessity,  bear  the  burden  of  each  other's  sins ;  but, 
rooted  with  him  in  the  divine  life,  we  partake  of  his  saving 
power  for  the  remission  of  sins. 

His  entire  life  was  an  offering  unto  God.  And  in  one 
sense  it  may  be  considered  a  propitiation ;  for,  as  there 
is  a  divine  anger  born  of  love,  so  born  of  the  same  love 
there  is  a  propitiation  which  appeases  this  anger.  Keep- 
ing the  branches  tender,  softening  the  heart,  and  bringing 
our  life  into  complete  harmony  Avith  the  divine  life,  he 
concludes  all  strife,  eases  all  pain  and — by  removing  the 
occasion — appeases  that  divine  anger  which,  in  the  green 
tree,  warns,  but  unto  the  dry  is  a  consuming  fire. 

XXVI 

A  WHOLLY  impertinent  application  of  the  term  justice 

to  God  has,  of  necessity,  led  to  a  false  conception  of  the 

nature  of  our  reconcihation  unto  Him.     Justice 

notT     is  not  a  divine  attribute.     It  has  in  it  no  divine 

^'T"      quality,  no  vital  meaning,  either  as  applied  to 

Attnbule.       i-  J  ^  ^'  ^  ^ 

Nature  or  to  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Even 
in  human  aftairs,  it  has  no  significance  save  in  connec- 
tion with  the  conventional  adjustments  of  a  perverted  life. 
Injustice  must  be  manifest  before  there  could  be  a  con- 
ception of  justice,  which  is  an  outward  and  mechanical 
righteousness  —  equity  of  division,  compensation  of  injuries. 
In  Nature,  equilibrium  would  mean  death ;  no  sooner  is 
it  restored  than  it  is  disturbed,  and  both  the  restoration 


DIVINE  LOVE   EXCLUDES  JUSTICE.  141 

and  the  disturbance  are  through  the  action  of  forces, 
dynamically  and  normally.  No  one  would  think  of 
transferring  our  term  justice  to   these   operations. 

Human  justice  is  the  righting  or  the  attempt  to  right 
a  wrong.  It  is  based  upon  the  existence  of  injury.  It  is 
only  in  its  penal  exercise  that  it  has  any  resemblance  to 
aught  in  Nature,  and  here  only  in  that  it  mechanically 
simulates  the  pains  through  which  we  are  divinely  warned 
against  the  ways  of  death ;  and  in  the  attempt  to  make 
human  penalties  restorative  there  is  a  beautiful  simulation 
of  the  saving  power  manifest  in  Nature.  The  scope  of 
this  human  justice  is  hmited  to  injury,  and  even  within 
this  scope  it  is  inefficient.  Equity  may  not  always  be 
realised.  The  life  taken  by  violence  is  not  restored  by 
the  taking  of  another.  Therefore  a  distinction  is  made 
between  this  imperfect  justice  and  what  is  called  abstract 
justice,  the  latter  being  referred  to  God.  Moreover  the 
element  of  vengeance,  which  human  love  and  wisdom 
have  excluded  from  the  administration  of  justice,  is  trans- 
ferred to  the  divine  administration  of  absolute  justice. 

But  when  we  make  justice  an  abstraction,  it  vanishes 
altogether.  There  is  nothing  absolute  except  in  a  no- 
tional world.  All  divine  operation  is  vital  and  is  real. 
As  in  us  perfect  love  casteth  out  fear,  so  the  perfect  love 
of  the  Father  casteth  out  justice. 

The  uniformity  in  the  operation  of  natural  laAvs  is  not 
equity.  In  the  processes  of  Nature  there  is  no  adminis- 
tration of  judgment.  She  separates  not  between  the  inno- 
cent and  the  guilty.  The  sun  shines  and  the  rain  falls 
alike  upon  the  just  and  the  unjust.  The  bounty  of  Na- 
ture is  not  measured  out  to  us  according  to  our  deserts. 
As  the  harvest  is  larger  than  the  sowing,  so  is  it  with  all 
her  giving  unto  us.  She  gives  for  the  asking,  and  even 
without  the  asking;  all  her  doors  are  open  unto  all,  save 


142  THE   INCARNATION. 

in  so  far  as  there  is  the  intervention  of  a  perverse  human 
adjustment.  She  has  grace  and  truth  for  all,  if  we  com- 
prehend her  meanings,  but  not  justice.  God  hath  ever  in 
her  invited  the  human  soul  to  the  feast  of  His  love,  to 
association  with  Him,  to  complete  reconciliation,  without 
conditions. 

And  our  Lord  only  more  effectually  invites  us  to  this 
peace.  How  often  he  says,  "  I  am  not  come  to  condemn." 
As  he  lays  aside  justice,  so  he  teaches  us  to  judge  not. 
We  are  not  to  care  for  the  things  in  connection  with 
which  men  value  justice.  We  are  to  return  good  for  evil. 
And  he  teaches  this  as  an  imitation  of  our  heavenly 
Father.  Instead  of  the  equities  of  justice,  there  are  the 
inequities  of  love.  Unto  perverse  human  judgment,  what 
unfairness  there  is  in  the  full  payment  of  the  laborer  who 
cometh  at  the  eleventh  hour  to  work  in  the  vineyard, 
even  as  to  the  others  who  have  borne  the  heat  and  toil 
of  the  day !  How  unsuited  to  our  ideas  of  equity,  the 
killing  of  the  fatted  calf  to  make  a  feast  for  the  returned 
prodigal,  who  hath  wasted  his  substance  in  riotous  living ! 
How  unseemly  the  especial  rejoicing  over  the  one  sinner 
that  repenteth  more  than  over  the  ninety  and  nine  that 
have  never  gone  astray ! 

In  the  illustration  of  divine  judgment  given  by  our 
Lord,  it  is  a  judgment  abrogating  judgment.  There  is 
no  reference  to  innocence  or  guilt.  It  is  not  considered 
whether  men  have  been  righteous ;  there  is  no  ethical  dis- 
cernment of  any  sort.  Our  Lord  in  the  clearest  manner 
teaches  us  that  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  there  is  but  one 
law,  the  law  of  love.  To  give  meat  to  the  hungry  and 
drink  to  the  thirsty,  to  house  the  stranger,  to  clothe  the 
naked,  to  visit  the  sick,  to  minister  unto  the  captive  — 
these  are  the  signs  not  of  righteousness  according  to  any 
standard  of  justice,  but  only  of  love. 


THE    DIVINE  JUDGMENT.  143 


XXVII 


Is  there  then  no  judgment?  Is  not  God  the  Judge 
of  all  the  earth  ?  Nay,  do  we  not  believe  that  our  Lord 
shall  come  to  be  our  judge  ? 

We  have  seen  how  our  Lord  himself  inter-  J^jg^ent. 
preted  divine  judgment.  He  regarded  it  not 
as  the  operation  of  a  Higher  Law,  as  men  conceive  ab- 
solute justice,  but  of  an  inward  law  —  the  law  of  love. 
It  is  not  judgment  according  to  an  imposed  command- 
ment, or  according  to  an  abstract  mental  conception,  nor 
is  it  a  judgment  from  without.  It  is  self-operative,  hav- 
ing in  it  no  ethical  quahty,  but  the  spontaneity,  vitahty 
and  reality  of  Nature. 

In  our  Lord's  interpretation  we  have  also  a  touching 
illustration  of  his  identification  with  humanity.  "  Inas- 
much as  ye  have  done  it  unto  the  least  of  these  ye  have 
done  it  unto  me."  Here  is  not  a  judge,  standing  outside 
of  that  he  judgeth.  He  is  the  Eternal  Word  in  the  hearts 
of  men,  as  Love,  and  as  a  sword  also,  making  keen  divi- 
sion: for  this  judgment  is  not  the  verdict  of  a  Law-giver 
but  a  discernment,  the  revelation  of  a  division  between 
the  love  of  the  kingdom  and  the  righteousness  of  this 
world.  In  this  sense,  he  ever  cometh  to  judge.  In  this 
sense  he  was  a  judge  while  he  was  upon  the  earth  in  the 
flesh.  When  the  sinful  woman  was  brought  before  him,  it 
was  they  that  brought  her  who  were  driven  forth  from  his 
presence  by  the  condemnation  in  their  own  hearts,  while 
she  remained  waiting  his  spoken  release,  "  Neither  do  I 
condemn  thee  ;  go  thy  way  and  sin  no  more."  It  is  in 
this  sense  that  those  who  are  united  unto  him,  receiving 
the  divine  life,  are  to  judge  the  world.  Yet,  in  the  sense 
of  condemnation,  they  are  to  "judge  not,"  leaving  this 


144  THE    INCARN/ITION. 

where  it  belongs,  where  he  says  it  already  is,  in  the  hearts 
of  men. 

This  inward  judgment  has,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  no 
relation  to  outward  accident.  Whosoever  puts  his  hand 
in  the  fire  it  shall  be  burned.  This  is  simply  to  say  that 
the  fire  goes  on  as  before.  But  that  flame  which  is  in  us, 
which  is  our  life  —  by  this  we  are  tried.  God  in  us  is 
both  love,  the  flame  of  the  Spirit,  renewing  us,  if  we 
submit  to  its  mastery,  and  keeping  us  in  living  ways, 
and  a  consuming  fire  if  we  resist  it  and  are  thus  cut  off 
from  these  living  ways  and  become  hard  and  unfruitful. 
In  both  cases  it  is  the  same  love — but  its  relentless  burn- 
ing of  dead  branches  we  call  vengeance. 

This  operation  in  us  is  not  suspended.  The  vital  con- 
tinuity is  maintained.  The  flame  that  builds  or  that  con- 
sumes is  immediate  in  its  action — it  is  unquenchable;  it 
goes  not  out  to  be  revived  for  building  or  burning  in  some 
other  world. 

XXVIII 

If  the  divine  life,  waiting  only  our  acceptance,  taketh 
such  mastery  of  us,  filling  us  to  overflowing  with  its 
grace   and   truth,  wherefore   do  we   pray  ? 

It  is  that  we  have  hunger  and  thirst  for  this  life  —  and 

these  are  prayer.     It  is  that  we  do  not  simply  submit  our 

^,     .       wills   to  His  win  but  co-operate  with   Him  — 

Meaning  ^ 

of  aspiring  for  the  coming  of  His  kingdom.  It  is 
^^^^^'  our  articulate  response  to  the  gracious  articula- 
tion for  us  of  the  divine  Word.  It  is  an  outspoken  loving 
recognition  of  an  outspoken  love.  It  is  the  color  and 
fragrance  of  the  flower,  the  joy  of  the  fruit,  which  answer 
unto  His  quickening — the  festival  song  of  the  vintage  to 
the  Lord  of  the  Vineyard. 


IN   HIS    NAME.  145 

We  pray  as  our  Lord  prayeth,  and  as  he  teacheth  us  to 
pray.  God  giveth  and  forgiveth  without  the  asking ;  but 
the  children  ask.  The  heavenly  Father  knoweth  whereof 
they  have  need  before  they  ask  Him.  But  their  asking  is 
the  crying  out  of  this  need  —  especially  for  His  spiritual 
gift  of  eternal  life.  They  do  not  make  petitions  as  of  one 
who  waiteth  therefor,  and  is  moved  thereby;  their  asking 
is  as  spontaneous  as  His  giving. 

They  ask  in  Christ's  Name.  It  is  not  a  condition  im- 
posed upon  them,  but  their  recognition  of  what  unto  them 
is  a  reality  —  that  he  is  the  Way  of  Life.  The  Father 
giveth  life  to  all  who  will  receive  it,  however  they  may 
come  unto  Him.  No  mediation  is  necessary  as  a  con- 
dition. Our  Lord  himself  reveals  the  direct  relation  of 
every  soul  unto  the  heavenly  Father,  and  no  idea  of  medi- 
ation is  suggested  in  the  prayer  he  hath  taught  us.  But 
in  all  things  he  hath  led,  and  we  have  followed.  Is  he  not 
the  first-begotten,  the  elder  brother?  Hath  he  not  first 
shown  us  the  Father  ?  All  that  we  have  seen  and  known, 
first  of  all  in  him,  is  naturally  real  to  us  only  in  this 
association.  His  glory  hath  been  made  wholly  ours;  he 
hath  wholly  identified  himself  with  us  ;  and  his  life  in  us  is 
a  vital  communication.  Like  the  man  whose  sight  has 
been  restored,  we  say,  "  This  we  know,  that,  whereas  we 
were  blind,  now  we  see."  This  is  the  way  we  have  known. 
It  is  a  blessed  reahty,  not  a  notional  condition.  Moreover, 
it  is  in  his  name  that  we  are  united  as  brethren. 

It  is  only  the  children  who  pray  —  for  prayer  is  only 
from  Faith. 


146  THE   INCARNATION. 


XXIX 


Faith  is  our  response  to  the  divine  life.     "  Thy  faith 

hath  made  thee  whole."    "According  to  thy  faith  be  it  unto 

thee."     The  word  is  ever  upon  our  Lord's  lips. 
Faith.  J     ,  .       ,  .       .     ,        ^         .  f 

and  always  in  this  vital  connection,  never  with 

any  intellectual  definition  thereof.  To  define  it  would  be 
to  limit  it,  to  bring  it  within  the  realm  of  notions,  contract- 
ing it  to  suit  the  limitations  of  the  understanding.  It  is  of 
the  life,  and,  having  the  simplicity  of  a  vital  principle,  is 
incapable  of  analysis. 

Faith  is  something  more  than  a  passive  attitude  —  it  is 
hunger  and  thirst  for  life.  It  is  a  seizure,  taking  the  king- 
dom by  violence.  It  is  the  eager  response  of  the  human 
soul  to  the  love  of  God  —  a  running  to  meet  Him  who 
hath  been  so  long  pursuing.  It  is  the  answer  of  the  bride 
to  the  Bridegroom,  being  won,  and  finding  Him  the  one 
among  ten  thousand  and  altogether  lovely. 

Who  shall  define  it  ?  Who  knoweth  how  the  sea 
answereth  the  moon  in  her  following  tides,  save  that  she 
followeth  ?  Faith  hath  in  it  the  mystery  of  all  life  ;  yet  is 
there  nothing  mystical  therein.  God  in  Christ  is  asking 
of  us  only  what  in  the  endless  wooing  of  Nature  He 
asketh  —  desire  and  a  following. 

Faith  is  a  correspondence  to  the  kingdom  which  it 
embraces.  As  the  one  is  compared  to  a  grain  of  mus- 
tard-seed, as  to  its  growth,  so  is  the  other.  It  is  the 
receiving  without  measure  of  a  measureless  giving. 

Our  Lord  especially  considers  faith  as  related  unto  him- 
self "  He  that  believeth  in  me  shall  not  perish."  It  is 
the  Father  in  him  that  speaks,  with  pleading  hands 
and  unaccusing  lips.  In  receiving  him  we  receive  the 
Father  also. 


FAITH   IN    THE   D/HNE    LOl^E.  147 

How  hath  God  in  Nature  wooed  the  human  soul  from 
the  beginning — from  the  heavens  above  and  from  the 
bosom  of  the  earth !  Who  that  hath  ears  to  hear  hath 
not  heard  these  voices,  nay  these  yearnings  of  Nature, 
who,  hke  a  mother,  calleth  us  to  herself?  How  fragrant 
her  breath,  how  comforting  her  balm !  Her  touch  giveth 
strength.  She  hath  rest  for  our  weariness,  taking  our 
burdens  if  we  will  but  give  them  up.  She  bringeth  dark- 
ness only  as  a  mantle  about  us,  that  she  may  give  her 
beloved  sleep.  But  what  greater  tenderness  is  there  in 
this  nearer  voice,  (since  it  is  our  very  own,)  which  saith, 
"  Come  unto  me,  ye  that  are  weary  and  heavy-laden,  and 
I  will  give  you  rest  "  ! 

To  come  unto  him,  is  to  have  faith — for  he  is  unto  us 
the  living  way.  He  helps  us  even  unto  this  faith.  Had 
not  God  first  loved  us,  we  had  not  sought  His  love.  We 
can  be  near  the  kingdom  only  because  it  is  at  hand,  near 
unto  us. 

The  ways  of  our  perverted  life  are  hard  ways,  and  the 
hardness  is  in  our  hearts.  If  we  keep  that  hardness,  if 
we  judge  God  after  our  ways  and  according  to  the  tradi- 
tions of  men,  attributing  to  Him  dispositions  and  qualities 
which  have  no  meaning  apart  from  human  conventions; 
if  we  think  of  Him  as  condemning  us  and  therefore  to  be 
propitiated  by  sacrifices  and  penances,  or  even  by  good 
works,  and  especially  if  we  look  upon  His  Christ  as  stand- 
ing between  us  and  His  wrath — this  Christ  who  is  the 
revelation  of  His  love  —  then,  if  indeed  the  divine  truth 
hath  made  any  impression  upon  us,  it  hath  been  received 
into  stony  ground,  and  the  seed,  springing  up,  is  forthwith 
choked  by  weeds,  and  cannot  endure  the  noonday  heat. 

But,  if  the  quickening  Spirit  hath  had  its  way  with  us, 
then  are  we  born  again  with  the  soft,  deep  heart  of  the 
litde  child  that,  having  nothing,  asketh  for  all  things,  that 


148  THE    INCARNATION. 

hath  no  care,  no  distress,  no  sohcitude,  and  expecteth  only 
love.  This  is  the  faith  to  which  all  things  are  possible. 
It  is  the  substance  of  all  it  hopeth,  the  vision  of  what, 
unto  the  world,  is  invisible. 

XXX 

"  Many  are  called  but  few  are  chosen."     The  chosen 

are  the  cherished,  who  have  received  the  truth  into  deeper 

soil ;  and  they  are  few,  not  because  of  any  limi- 

„.    ^       tation  of  the  Father's  love  or  because  of  any 

Chosen.  •' 

arbitrary  selection. 

What  know  we  of  God's  selection  ?  Here  also  let  us 
beware  lest  we  judge  Him  according  to  our  ways. 

Are  the  Jews  especially  chosen  ?  But,  behold,  it  is 
they  who  straightway  and  persistently  rejected  our  Lord. 
Is  it  the  righteous  ?  Yet  it  is  not  the  well  but  the  sick 
that  need  a  physician.  Our  Lord  was  seen  in  the  flesh 
by  only  a  few  of  a  single  generation  of  men.  Were  those 
who  were  thus  next  him  especially  favored  ?  But,  behold, 
some  poor  fishermen  of  Galilee  receive  him  before  his 
brethren  in  the  flesh;  and,  of  his  own  disciples,  one 
denieth  and  another  betrayeth  him.  How  straight  is 
the  gate,  how  narrow  the  way,  that  leadeth  unto  life 
when  they  who,  to  the  eye  of  sense,  seem  nearest  there- 
unto stumble  and  go  astray,  finding  it  not.  It  is  not 
they  who  are  invited  who  sit  down  to  this  bridal  feast, 
but  the  poor,  the  halt,  the  maimed,  and  the  blind;  yet 
is  there  not  one  of  these  whose  place  can  be  there,  not 
having  on  the  wedding  garment,  not  having  the  child 
heart. 

Our  problems  are  not  God's  problems.  Unto  Him 
there  are  no  problems.  We  see  the  God  in  Christ  in 
the  fact  that  he  never  suggested  enigmas  of  Providence, 


INTERCORRESPONDENCES.  149 

Free-will,  Foreknowledge,  the  Origin  of  Evil.  The 
problematic  situations  presented  to  him — in  the  cases 
of  the  tribute-money,  the  sinful  woman,  the  woman  who 
had  seven  husbands  —  did  not  elicit  from  him  any  dis- 
cussion of  them  or  any  attempt  at  their  solution.  He 
taught  through  parables,  and  the  parable  is  an  evasion 
of  mental  analysis.  One  of  these  parables  touches  this 
matter  of  the  divine  selection.  In  this  parable  the 
world  is  likened  unto  a  field  in  which  wheat  hath  been 
sown  and  in  which  the  evil  one  hath  sown  tares  also. 
Both  are  left  to  grow  together  until  the  harvest.  But 
the  wheat  represents  not  good  men  but  the  good  seed, 
and  the  tares  not  bad  men  but  the  evil  seed.  After 
the  harvest  the  tares  are  burned.  "  Good  is  the  final 
end  of  all." 

XXXI 

Now,  there  are  those,  who,  puzzled  by  the  determina- 
tions of  what  seems  to  them  a  kind  of  Destiny,  have 
sought  to  account  for  what  we  call  Evil  in  q^^,^  y^-_ 
Nature,  including  humanity,  by  representing  dom  not 
the  universe  as  a  divided  realm,  a  house  di-  vided  against 
vided  against  itself,  in  which  an  Evil  Power  "^^'^• 
(which  they  regard  as  identical  with  the  enemy,  or  Evil 
One,  introduced  into  this  parable  of  the  wheat  and  the 
tares)  contends  against  God.  It  is  not  for  us  to  say 
that  there  are  no  sinful,  fallen  natures  outside  of  the  hu- 
man race.  If  man  could  fall  from  his  first  estate,  why 
not  angels  ?  Nor  is  it  for  us  to  say  that,  if  there  be  such 
fallen  beings,  they  have  no  communication  with  men,  re- 
inforcing what  is  evil  in  our  own  perverse  inclinations. 
Do  we  not  believe  in  a  communion  of  all  saints,  not  as 
a  vain  conception  but  as  a  vital  association  through  re- 

13 


ISO  THE   INCARNATION. 

ciprocal  influence,  so  that  all  the  good,  being  in  accord, 
help  each  other  to  higher  truth  and  life  ?  And  does  not 
this  communion  include  not  only  all  the  redeemed  of 
all  time  but  also  all  creatures  of  all  worlds  who  are  of  the 
heavenly  kingdom  ?  In  like  manner  there  is  the  vital  as- 
sociation of  all  beings  not  in  accord  with  God's  will,  but 
only  accordant  one  with  another.  But  we  cannot  regard 
the  Father  of  all  as  in  contention  with  his  creatures  —  a 
contention  of  strife.  Nor  can  we  think  of  Him  as  having 
given  to  any  of  them  powers  over  man  such  as  He  Him- 
self does  not  exercise  —  such  as  do  violence  unto  the  free- 
dom of  the  human  will.  Least  of  all  can  we  suppose  that 
He,  even  for  a  time,  remits  His  loving  strife  with  men, 
abandoning  them  to  evil  influences.  He  hath  in  His  uni- 
verse no  selected  portion  (whether  as  to  time  or  space) 
which  He  calleth  His,  leaving  the  residue  unto  another. 
All  times  and  all  places  are  His  in  all  His  domain.  To 
Him,  indeed,  in  His  essential  being,  there  is  no  time  and 
no  space.  He  regards  not  the  accident  of  birth  or  of 
death :  unto  Him  all  existence  is  present.  He  is  not  the 
God  of  the  dead  but  of  the  living.  He  seeth  the  end 
from  the  beginning. 

We  see  only  parts,  and  perceive  only  under  the  forms 
of  our  understanding ;  we  see  with  our  eyes,  and  perceive 
with  our  understanding  under  its  limitations.  But  He 
seeth  all,  because  He  hath  not  eyes,  and  in  Him  is  all 
wisdom,  because  He  hath  not  understanding.  Hence  it 
is  that  unto  us  there  are  problems  concerning  evil  and 
destiny;  but  unto  Him  there  is  no  problem.  It  is  not 
within  the  scope  of  even  inspired  human  logic  to  define 
His  eternal  purposes  —  least  of  all  to  determine  how  or 
upon  what  conditions  He  shall  save  His  erring  children, 
or  what  shall  be  the  measure  of  His  salvation. 


CATHOLICITY  OF  FAITH.  151 


XXXII 

Who  shall  say  that  because  a  few  are  chosen  all  will 
not  be  saved  ?  Is  it  not  rather  true  that  because  of  the 
chosen  there  is  the  greater  hope  for  all  ?  All 
souls  are  living  that  have  ever  lived,  and  the  ^a°|,7Jo^' 
leaven  of  the  kingdom  is  sufficient  for  all; 
through  the  vital  association  of  all  living,  it  reaches  all. 
In  the  interval  between  our  Lord's  death  and  his  resur- 
rection was  his  gracious  appearing  in  hell,  according  to 
the  Aposdes'  Creed;  and  the  belief  in  this  visitation  is  a 
beautiful  indication  of  a  faith  that  is  all-embracing.  And, 
as  God  striveth  with  all  souls,  even  those  not  in  accord 
with  Him,  so  every  one  that  is  delivered  from  the  bonds 
of  sin  is  associated  with  Him  in  this  striving.  All  the 
good  —  the  good  in  the  sense  of  the  kingdom,  the  Lov- 
ing Ones — strengthen  each  other,  and  their  love  helps 
loosen  the  bonds  of  them  that  are  still  in  prison,  so  that 
captivity,  yea,  even  the  captivity  of  fallen  angels,  is 
led  captive. 

Our  Lord's  power  is  over  all  flesh  —  a  saving  power. 
Faith,  then,  the  response  of  his  brethren,  is  catholic,  em- 
bracing all  life  within  the  scope  of  its  hope.  In  its  very 
nature  it  is  expansive,  without  arbitrary  limitations.  It  is 
not  Pharisaic,  seeing  a  boundary  by  which  it  is  separated 
from  any  portion  of  humanity  or  of  the  universe. 

Our  Lord's  teaching  is  clear  concerning  this  bound- 
less love  and  hope.  On  that  day  when  in  the  Synagogue 
he  read  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah  respecting  him,  he  was 
speaking  to  his  own  people,  his  neighbors  and  acquaint- 
ances, who  had  known  him  as  the  carpenter's  son,  and 
who  had  so  little  faith  in  him  that  he  said  unto  them,  "A 
prophet  is  not  without  honor  save  in  his  own  country." 


152  THE   INCARNATION. 

And  he  added :  "  But  I  tell  you  of  a  truth  many  widows 
were  in  Israel  in  the  days  of  Elijah,  when  the  heaven  was 
shut  up  three  years  and  six  months,  when  great  famine 
was  throughout  the  land;  but  unto  none  of  these  was 
Elijah  sent,  but  unto  Sarepta,  a  city  of  Sidon,  unto  a 
woman  that  was  a  widow.  And  many  lepers  were  in 
Israel  in  the  time  of  Elisha,  the  prophet;  and  none  of 
them  was  cleansed,  but  Naaman  the  Syrian."  Now  the 
Jews  held  themselves  to  be  God's  chosen  people,  and 
when  they  heard  these  words,  forecasting  our  Lord's 
readier  acceptance  by  the  Gentiles  than  by  the  Jews, 
when  they  were  told  that  salvation  was  not  a  merely 
local  affair,  but  might  even  temporarily  pass  by  those 
who  called  themselves  the  elect,  they  were  filled  with  in- 
dignation and  drove  him  from  their  city. 

We  should  beware  lest  we  take  any  incidental  feature 
of  a  parable  of  our  Lord's  and,  by  laying  special  stress 
thereupon,  make  it  a  stumbling-block  for  our  confusion. 
In  the  parable  of  Dives  and  Lazarus,  the  lesson  to  be 
received  by  us  is  not  that  there  is  an  impassable  chasm 
between  the  saint  and  the  sinner,  any  more  than  we  are 
taught  by  it  that  the  distinction  between  the  faithful  and 
the  unfaithful  is  identical  with  that  between  the  rich  and 
the  poor.  Our  Lord  had  said,  "  How  difficult  it  is  for 
them  that  have  riches  to  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven ! " 
This  parable  is  meant  as  an  illustration  of  the  difficulty — 
a  reinforcement,  through  an  effective  picture,  of  this  truth. 
In  the  parable  of  the  judgment,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
truth  which  our  Lord  wished  to  impress  upon  his  hearers 
was,  not  the  fact  of  eternal  punishment,  or  of  punishment  in 
any  sense — but  that  love  is  the  principle  which  is  charac- 
teristic of  the  kingdom.  We  see  clearly  from  what  is  essen- 
tial in  this  parable  that  God  doth  not  make  recompense 
for  what  men  call  goodness,  or  administer  punishment  for 


STUMBLING-BLOCKS. 


'53 


what  men  call  evil,  but  that,  without  reference  to  judg- 
ment, no  one  can  be  a  child  of  the  kingdom  who  loveth 
not  his  neighbor — loving  without  hope  of  return.  This 
love  is  the  leaven  of  the  kingdom. 

By  emphasising  the  incidental  features  of  a  parable  we 
are  not  led  into  the  truth  but  into  falsehood.  Thus,  from 
the  parable  of  the  vineyard,  we  would  infer  that  God  mak- 
eth  payment ;  whereas  the  meaning  of  it  is  that  our  idea 
of  payment  cannot  be  apphed  to  the  kingdom.  So,  from 
the  parable  of  the  talents  we  might  obtain  a  sanction  for 
usury.  The  Hebrew,  or  rather  the  Oriental,  conception 
of  an  Evil  Power  sharing  in  the  conduct  of  the  universe 
is  incidentally  indicated  in  the  parable  of  the  wheat  and 
the  tares. 

So  our  Lord  incidentally  uses  terms  of  the  popular  faith 
— such  as  Gehenna  and  demoniacal  possession  —  but  he 
is  not  thereby  teaching  their  existence  as  truths.  He 
would  undoubtedly  have  spoken  of  the  sun  as  rising  and 
setting.  His  mission  was  not  to  teach  pathology  as  a 
science,  or  astronomy ;  and,  under  the  limitations  of  his 
incarnation,  he  could  have  reached  scientific  truth  in  no 
other  way  than  by  the  ordinary  processes  of  human 
thought  and  investigation.  What  divination  there  may 
have  been  in  him,  through  the  indwelling  Divine  Wisdom, 
of  that  harmony  which  underlies  all  science,  we  know 
not,  and  can  only  imagine  through  what  he  has  revealed 
of  the  harmony  of  the  spiritual  kingdom.  As  he  gave  us 
here  not  Science  but  Life,  not  ethics  but  the  vital  divine 
and  human  sympathy  (which  spiritually  are  one)  that 
effaces  ethics  —  so,  if  it  had  been  a  part  of  his  mission  to 
fully  unfold  to  us  the  kingdom  of  Nature,  he  would,  by 
supreme  divination,  have  so  revealed  its  harmony  as  to 
have  transformed  what  we  call  physical  science.  All  life 
would  have  been  shown  unto  us  not  as  a  system  of  forces 


154  THE   INCARNATION. 

acting  upon  and  through  atoms  and  in  accordance  with 
laws  expressed  through  mathematical  terms  of  distances 
and  proportions,  but  as  a  universal  symphony.  But  it  was 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  and  its  harmonies  that  must  first 
be  sought ;  and,  in  unfolding  these,  he  gave  us  the  key  to 
all  other  spiritual  revelation  —  even  that  of  Nature. 

XXXIII 

What,  then,  is  this  paradox  which  opposes  the  straight- 

ness  of  the  way  unto  Life,  and  the  paucity  of  its  travellers, 

to  a  hope  that  embraces  the  universe  ? 

Catholicity       -pQ  Q^j.  limited  wisdom  it  seems  a  contradic- 

Nature     tion.     But  the  difficulty  thus  opposed  to  infinite 

^^"'*.       grace  is  human,  not  divine.     Unto  the  wisdom 

ofChnst.      o  ' 

and  power  of  God,  unto  the  patience  of  Him 
to  whom  a  thousand  years  are  but  as  a  day,  there  is  no 
difticulty.  Not  even  the  perverse  human  will  can  finally 
resist  his  saving  power.  Not  only  man,  but  every  living 
creature,  shall  join  the  procession  of  this  triumph.  It  is 
not  only  our  life  but  all  life  that  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God. 
Here  Nature  fully  responds  unto  the  Christ.  She  shows 
us,  in  the  ultimate  unfolding  of  her  meanings,  that  all  life 
is  one.  The  law  of  the  falling  apple  is  the  law  of  the  star. 
There  can  be  no  covenant  that  is  of  God,  which  embraces 
a  part  only  of  His  domain.  Distances  —  these  are  but  the 
intervals  of  harmony.  That  which  seems  to  separate,  in 
reality  unites  —  as  the  oceans  which  so  long  apparently 
separated  the  peoples  of  the  earth  became  the  readiest 
means  of  communication  between  them.  Obstructions 
only  reveal  the  passage  of  mighty  forces,  as  the  resisting 
air  causes  the  flash  of  lightnings,  which  would  else  pass 
unseen  above  us  from  one  quarter  of  the  heaven  to 
another. 


THE   BONDAGE   OF   FREEDOM.  155 

We  tlaink  of  inorganic  matter  as  that  which  is  most 
closely  linked  with  the  universal  life.  The  mightiest  forces 
seem  here  to  find  expression  in  flaming  spheres,  moving  in 
vast  orbits  with  marvellous  velocities ;  and  yet  the  merest 
atom  responds  to  the  whole,  action  and  reaction  being 
equal.  We  are  astonished  by  the  potentialities  lodged  in 
a  single  drop  of  water.  But  all  immensities  and  all  indi- 
vidual atoms  —  infinite  and  infinitesimal  systems  —  await 
with  longing  expectation  that  life  which  is  not  of  their 
generation,  but  for  which  they  exist  —  the  life  of  the  or- 
ganic kingdom,  a  fresh  utterance  of  the  Eternal  Word. 
The  most  delicate  of  plants  has  aUiances  which  com- 
prise not  only  all  the  affinities  of  the  inorganic  world  but 
some  nearer  association  with  and  more  intimate  expres- 
sion of  the  divine  life,  which  before  has  slept  in  the  world 
but  now  dreams.  In  the  higher  organisation  of  the  ani- 
mal, the  intimacy  is  still  nearer,  the  expression  larger,  as 
if  in  it  the  Master  Life  had  found  its  awakening;  and  in 
man,  the  very  child  of  God,  it  speaks  —  word  answering 
unto  the  Word. 

At  every  step  of  this  progression,  there  is  wider  freedom 
which  seems  to  involve  greater  separation  from  the  bonds 
which  bind  the  life  back  unto  the  universal  life ;  but  the 
separation  is  only  in  appearance;  a  stronger  bond  is 
found  in  every  emancipation,  until  in  man  it  is  religion. 
As  he  hath  the  liberty  of  the  son,  there  is  the  strongest 
tie  between  him  and  the  Father.  The  bond  is  at  once 
direct — in  immediate  communion  —  and  indirect  in  that 
the  entire  series  of  affinities,  which  are,  indeed,  all  bound 
up  in  him,  lead  him  back  through  every  showing  of  the 
Word  in  Nature  unto  the  same  Father;  but  in  the  full 
spiritual  life  the  indirection  of  this  leading  is  effaced. 

The  universal  symphony  has  its  response  in  man,  and 
when  he  is  united,  as  was  our  Lord,  unto  the  Divine  Life, 


156  THE    INCARhlATION. 

with  following  will  and  faith,  he  has  the  key  to  the  great 
accord  which  gives  him  not  only  sympathy  with  Nature, 
more  potent  than  that  he  calls  his  mastery  over  her,  but 
also  sympathy  with  humanity  which  has  that  virtue  which 
was  in  our  Lord's  "  power  over  all  flesh." 

That  exaltation  of  faith  which  we  call  inspiration  has 
always  this  expansion  that  includes  the  whole.  The 
prophets  had  it,  and  it  carried  them  beyond  the  boun- 
daries of  a  provincial  religion,  so  that  God  seemed  unto 
them  not  the  God  of  a  single  race,  but  of  all  peoples. 
John  the  Evangelist  bad  it;  and  it  led  him  through 
the  conception  of  the  Everlasting  Word  to  extend  the 
dominion  of  Grace  so  that  it  embraced  not  only  all  hu- 
manity but  all  creation.  The  Apostle  Paul  had  it,  and 
with  all  the  emphasis  which  he  gives  to  predestination, 
he  declares  that  God  willeth  that  all  men  be  saved, "  espe- 
cially they  that  believe." 

But  they  who  have  known  the  love  of  God  through  the 
new  Hfe  see  no  limit  to  His  salvation.  Unto  them  the 
whole  universe  is  bound  together  in  vital  sympathy,  so 
that  there  is  no  suflering  but  of  all,  no  deliverance  but  of 
all.  St.  Paul  conceives  of  the  entire  creation  as  groan- 
ing and  travailing  in  pain,  because  of  man's  alienation. 
"  For  the  earnest  expectation  of  the  creation  waiteth  for 
the  reveahng  of  the  sons  of  God."  And  he  speaks  also 
of  "  the  hope  that  the  creation  itself  also  shall  be  de- 
livered from  the  bondage  of  corruption  into  the  liberty 
of  the  glory  of  the  children  of  God." 

As  it  is  love  which  unites  all,  it  is  love  only  that  com- 
prehends the  harmony.  Philosophy  is  not  our  guide  in 
these  living  ways.  Instead  of  seizing  upon  the  Hfe,  it 
chases  shadows.  It  correlates  all  forces  and  brings  us 
face  to  face  with  a  God  who  is  Power,  not  Love.  It  is 
encompassed   by  the   shadows  of  its   own  creation,  and 


MASTERY   IS    SERVICE.  157 

confounds  us  with  problems,  in  whicli,  in  irreconcilable 
contradiction,  Destiny  confronts  Free  Will,  and  the  indi- 
vidual human  soul  becomes,  in  the  shadow  of  the  One 
Power,  itself  a  fleeting  shadow,  an  illusion. 

In  these  ways,  it  is  our  Lord  that  leadeth  us.  He  pro- 
pounds no  problem,  for  he  seeth  none.  He  deHvers  us 
from  shadows,  giving  us  the  true  life.  He  knows  the 
heart  of  man,  and  reads  the  impress  upon  it  of  the 
divine  Word,  though,  like  a  palimpsest,  it  hath  been  writ- 
ten o'er  and  o'er  with  perverse  interpretations  of  God 
and  Nature  and  humanity ;  he  calls  him  to  a  new  birth, 
bringing  to  light  the  original  impress ;  he  restores  to  man 
both  himself  and  Nature,  whose  divine  meanings  are  all 
seen  to  be  in  harmony  with  those  of  the  newly  revealed 
Kingdom ;  and,  taking  upon  himself  the  type  of  humanity, 
he  discloses  the  glory  of  the  type  and  its  persistence  in 
the  endless  renewal  of  life. 

XXXIV 

Life  is  your  master.  Beloved ;  and  in  the  blessed  Lord 
ye  have  found  this   Master,  who,  washing  his  disciples' 
feet,  hath   shown  that   mastery  is,  first   of  all, 
service.  The 

How  in  all  ways  hath  he  broken  down  the  spirit 
barriers,  by  which,  in  our  thoughts,  the  human 
is  separated  from  the  divine,  our  wills  from  the  will  of  the 
Father  !  In  the  kingdom  every  maxim  based  on  worldly 
experience  is  reversed.  We  say  unto  the  child,  "  Come 
and  be  like  us."  Our  Lord  saith  unto  us,  "  Except  ye 
become  as  little  children,  ye  shall  not  enter  into  the  king- 
dom of  heaven."  The  chief  preparation  for  the  kingdom, 
through  the  preaching  of  John  the  Baptist,  was  "  to  turn 
the  hearts  of  the  fathers  to  the  children." 


158  THE   INC/IRNATION. 

This,  then,  is  conversion — to  be  converted  and  to  be- 
come as  little  children.  We  must  have  the  faith  of  the 
child,  who  receiveth  everything.  We  commit  ourselves 
wholly  to  the  divine  life,  whose  mastery  is  ministration. 
This  is  the  humility  of  the  child — the  willingness  to  be 
led.  Thus  was  our  Lord  "  meek  and  lowly  of  heart," 
knowing  that  the  divine  life  would  determine  its  own 
issues. 

The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  within  us  only  when  we  have 
utterly  put  away  from  us  the  wisdom  and  strength  of  this 
world,  having  the  foolishness  and  weakness  of  babes.  The 
very  seed  of  the  new  life — all  the  husk  of  it,  all  save  the 
vital  principle  itself — must  die  before  it  can  germinate. 
In  regeneration,  not  only  all  that  a  man  hath  himself  been, 
but  all  systems,  all  forms  and  all  traditions  which  have 
taken  hold  of  him,  of  whatsoever  preliminary  value  or  help 
they  may  have  been  to  him,  must  die — all  save  the  vital 
principle  itself,  which  is  of  the  Spirit.  For  every  new-born 
child  of  God  there  is  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth. 

The  husk  hath  indeed  preserved  the  seed — yet  must  it 
die  before  the  seed  can  spring  up.  What  the  seed  shall  be 
in  its  growth  —  its  selection  and  assimilation  of  outward 
elements — must  also  be  determined  by  the  vital  principle. 
Not  only  out  of  the  regenerate  heart  are  the  issues  of  its 
life,  but  the  quickening  Spirit,  in  every  one  that  is  bom 
again,  is  a  new  and  vital  test  of  all  outside  forms  and 
guises  of  truth.  New  wine  will  burst  old  bottles.  All  that 
hath  been  said  "  of  old  time  "  is  subject  either  to  renova- 
tion by  the  quickening  Spirit,  or  to  its  testing,  whether  it 
be  indeed  the  expression  of  a  spiritual  truth. 

What  goeth  on  in  the  soil  that  lieth  under  this  sun  of  a 
new  heaven,  what  ploughing  of  Sorrow,  breaking  up  its 
hardnesses,  what  gracious  operation  of  all  the  elements,  or 
what  is  the  way  of  the  Spirit  with  the  heart  of  man,  we 


FREEDOM  FROM    STRIFE.  159 

know  not.  The  kingdom  comelh  not  by  observation. 
We  only  know  that,  as  our  Lord  saith,  it  is  within  us.  It 
is  not  a  thing  of  here  or  there,  of  yesterday  or  to-morrow. 
It  is  not  a  matter  of  environment.  It  is  not  a  reform.  It 
is  a  new  hfe  —  the  work  within  us  of  the  Spirit  of  Love. 

XXXV 

The  children  are  free.     Old  bonds  and  liens  are  loos- 
ened.    How  different  is  this  from  all  other  freedom,  such 
as  we  think  we  gain  by  antagonising  evil.     We 
drive  out  the  evil  spirit,  and  the  room  is  swept    Freedom 
and  garnished;   but   forthwith   it   becomes   the    children, 
receptacle    of   a   sevenfold    worse    spirit  —  that 
of  self-righteousness,  the  most  effective  barrier  to  divine 
grace.     We  destroy  giant  after  giant,  and  others  arise  in 
their  places ;  and  what  seems  to  be  the  development  of 
our  strength  from  this  struggle  is  really  a  source  of  weak- 
ness.    For  with  our  limited  powers  we   are    contending 
against  what  is  inveterately  rooted  and  established,  while 
we  ourselves  are  isolated,  cut  off  from  the  infinite  strength 
which  is  of  itself  sufficient  for  us,  but  which  entereth  not 
the  tense  muscles  of  the  gladiator,  while  it  maketh  irresist- 
ible the  soft  hand  of  the  child.    We  build  a  barrier  against 
the  flood,  which  rises  as  we  build,  gathering  strength  for 
a  ruin  that  we  cannot  withstand. 

It  is  the  meek  who  shall  inherit  the  earth.  It  is  the 
open  heart,  the  loosened  hand,  which  receive  the  divine 
strength.  We  wait  upon  the  Lord.  Instead  of  fighting 
sin  with  our  puny  force — which  is,  after  all,  only  a  dalli- 
ance therewith — we  accept  his  life,  and,  behold,  the  enemy 
hath  fled.  Sin  is  the  business  of  a  heart  unoccupied  by  the 
divine  hfe. 

The  tender  shoots  from  the  living  vine  —  the  fresh  im- 


i6o  THE   INCARNATION. 

pulses  of  hearts  quickened  by  the  Father's  love  —  with 
what  freedom  and  amplitude  of  growth  do  they  spread, 
driving  out  the  weeds,  clinging  about  the  old  hard  lives 
and  pulling  them  down.  So  soft,  so  pliant  these  child- 
hearts  !  Yet  they  shall  occupy  the  earth.  This  love  is 
the  leaven  of  the  kingdom  which  leaveneth  the  whole. 
It  thinketh  no  evil  and  hath  no  fear  of  evil.  For,  behold, 
no  sooner  is  a  new  child  born  than  its  arms  fearlessly  em- 
brace the  unregenerate,  taking  part  in  the  Father's  loving 
strife  with  all  stray  hearts,  following  in  the  steps  of  him 
who  was  the  friend  of  publicans  and  sinners,  with  the  grace 
not  of  charity  but  of  equal  love.  Freed  from  burdens  and 
bonds,  it  straightway  seeketh  to  take  upon  itself  the  bur- 
dens and  bonds  of  others,  yet  loseth  none  of  its  freedom — 
since  love  is  in  its  essence  free,  lightening  all  heaviness  as 
the  sun  lifteth  the  sea ;  loosening  all  tension,  as  it  is  loos- 
ened in  sleep. 

The  freedom  of  the  kingdom  bringeth  ease,  and  setteth 
us  in  a  large  place. 

It  is  because  of  the  cares  of  this  world,  the  deceitfulness 
of  riches,  and  the  hardness  of  men's  hearts  that  our  Lord 
saith,  "  Strait  is  the  gate  and  narrow  the  way  that  lead- 
eth  unto  life."  But,  when  the  hfe  is  once  found,  the  way 
is  broad  and  hath  no  boundaries.  "  The  entrances  of  the 
elder  world  [referring  to  the  life  from  which  man  had  de- 
generated] were  wide  and  sure  and  brought  immortal 
fruit."*  "The  righteous  shall  suffer  straight  things  and 
hope  for  the  wide."t  This  hope  is  realised  in  the  king- 
dom. Therefore  our  Lord  saith,  "  My  yoke  is  easy  and 
my  burden  is  light."  As  a  simiHtude  of  spiritual  growth, 
he  showeth  us  the  lilies  of  the  field,  "  which  toil  not, 
neither  do  they  spin."     Surely  the  child  of  God  hath  left 

*  II.  Esdras,  vii.  13.         t  Ibid.,  vii.  18. 


FREEDOM  FROM  CARE.  i6i 

all  care  behind.  "Take  no  thought  for  the  morrow." 
SoUcitude  and  prudence  have  no  place  in  the  spiritual  life. 
There  is  no  mental  strain  of  prevision.  "  Take  no  thought 
what  ye  shall  say  ...  it  shall  be  given  you  what  ye 
shall  say."  The  readiness  is  all.  Our  largeness  is  here, 
in  our  reception  of  tjie  divine  life.  Here  is  dilation,  while 
the  tension  of  effort  is  contraction.  It  is  not  the  ease  of 
luxury  (which  is  on  the  contrary  sluggish  and  heavy)  but 
of  simplicity,  of  spontaneity. 

The  child  of  God  is  of  necessity  an  optimist.  No  prob- 
lems vex  him.  The  divine  life  hath  no  knots  or  entangle- 
ments. We  have  not  only  the  hope  of  an  endless  life,  but 
the  kind  of  hope  pertinent  to  such  a  life,  being  partakers 
in  large  measure  of  that  divine  wisdom  which  overlooketh 
the  partial  and  temporal,  regarding  especially  the  consum- 
mation of  all  things — the  meanings  which  are  spiritual 
and  eternal,  which  are  the  meanings  of  the  kingdom. 

XXXVI 

The  freedom  of  the  kingdom  is  freedom  not  from  the 
world,  but  from  the  power  of  the  worldly  —  even  from 
contention  therewith.     We  may  receive  blows, 

.     .  .        ,  Freedom 

persecutions,  death ;  but  it  is  not  what  is  done    from  the 
unto  us  which  is  our  life,  but  what  we  ourselves  „f°'^,^.''  °^ 

Worldliness. 

do  and  are,  or  rather  what  God  doeth  and  is  in 
us.     We    are  surrounded   by  a   system  which  is  not   of 
the  kingdom.      It  is  not   next  our  hearts.     Its  struggles 
and  its  problems  are  not  ours  save  by  sufferance  or  adop- 
tion—  they  are  no  essential  part  of  our  spiritual  life. 

Do  the  nations  make  war  one  upon  another  ?  What  is 
that  to  us,  save  in  so  far  as  our  lives  may  illustrate  the 
love  which  extinguishes  strife?  They  will  in  tim.e — and 
the  more  speedily  the  more   skilled  they  become  in  the 


i62  THE    INCARNATION. 

arts  of  war  —  reach  an  equilibrium  of  forces,  a  balance 
of  power  which  they  call  peace ;  they  may  even  become 
so  wise  in  their  generation  as,  from  purely  worldly  mo- 
tives, to  regard  all  war  as  a  foolish  and  useless  waste  of 
force  and  material,  and  establish  a  universal  peace.  But 
while,  from  different  motives,  we  may  concur  with  such 
counsels,  welcoming  even  this  simulacrum  of  the  peace 
of  God,  yet  we  know  its  hollowness;  it  is  no  response 
to  our  living  faith. 

Is  there  injustice  in  the  world?  We  are  touched  with 
compassion  for  the  sufferings  of  the  oppressed,  and  still 
more  for  the  hardness  of  the  hearts  of  the  oppressors. 
But  do  we  oppose  justice  to  this  injustice  ?  It  is  in- 
justice that  begets  what  the  world  calls  justice.  The 
universality  of  selfishness  will  bring  about  an  equilibrium 
of  its  energies  —  a  balancing  of  the  scales.  All  ethical 
demands  will  be  met ;  but,  the  hardness  of  heart  remain- 
ing, what  rejoicing  have  we  in  such  equity,  though,  not 
being  Quietists,  we  may  do  with  our  might  whatsoever 
our  hands  find  to  do  in  behalf  of  even  this  semblance  of 
righteousness  ?  It  is  not  the  righteousness  of  the  kingdom. 
Our  hope  is  in  the  inequities  of  divine  and  human  love. 

XXXVII 

The  freedom  of  the  Kingdom  is  a  freedom  from  ethical 
obUgations  —  from  what  the  world  calls  conscience. 

The  new  birth  does  not  abolish  any  physical  or  mental 

or  spiritual   power  which  man  has  by  nature,   nor   any 

natural  manifestation  thereof.     The  whole  man 

^'^from'"    is  regenerated;    and  all  natural  obligations  are 

Ethical     strengthened  —  but  not  as  obligations;  there  is 

Obligation,  introduced  the  spiritual  in  place  of  the  ethical 

motive  of  action.     We  are  children  and  heirs  of  a  realm 


THE   LAPV  OF  LOVE.  163 

whose  only  law  is  that  of  love  —  of  love,  not  in  the  ethi- 
cal or  scientific  definition  thereof,  but  as  the  vital  spring 
of  ail  action. 

Ethical,  like  physical,  science  reaches  only  a  generalisa- 
tion, a  formula  expressed  in  terms  of  the  understanding, 
and  so  limited  as  to  exclude  any  element  of  spiritual  sig- 
nificance. Conscience  itself  is  such  a  term.  It  is  used 
mainly  as  indicating  the  power  of  distinction  between 
right  and  wrong,  of  moral  judgment;  but  it  would  seem 
to  be  something  more  than  this,  in  that  it  is  a  power 
native  to  man  and  spontaneous  in  its  action;  therefore  a 
larger  generalisation  is  made,  and  it  is  called  a  moral  in- 
stinct. Beyond  this  science  cannot  go,  for  here  it  con- 
fronts hfe.  It  is  admitted  that  it  is  a  power  which  — like 
all  others  —  may  be  perverted,  which  may  accommodate 
itself  to  a  system  of  purely  arbitrary  and  conventional 
regulations.  But  it  has  its  surprises  —  there  is  in  it  some- 
thing which  transcends  any  ethical  system,  and  which 
cannot  be  ethically  defined  —  something  rooted  in  man's 
spiritual  nature,  though  its  judgments  are  not  necessarily 
of  a  spiritual  character,  as  "right"  and  "wrong"  are  not 
terms  of  spiritual  significance. 

They  who  would  have  Christianity  appear  to  be  only 
the  perfection  of  the  worldly  scheme  naturally  choose 
to  regard  our  Lord's  teachings  as  pre-eminently  ethical. 
But  he  clearly  avoids  the  use  of  all  ethical  terms  —  never 
speaking  of  conscience  or  duty  —  and  to  translate  his  dis- 
courses into  such  terms,  if  it  were  possible  to  do  so,  would 
be  an  utter  eclipse  of  their  heavenly  light. 

He  who  is  born  again  liveth  and  moveth  and  hath  his 
being  in  Love,  which  is  the  vital  principle  of  the  kingdom. 
With  all  His  purposes  concerning  us,  even  in  our  temporal 
relations,  God  hath  associated  what  we  in  these  relations 
call  love,  so  that  it  is  by  this  bond  that  we  are  drawn 


i64  THE    INCARNATION. 

instead  of  being  driven  by  the  compulsion  of  an  outward 
force  or  of  an  arbitrary  commandment.  The  very  con- 
tinuance of  human  existence  upon  the  earth  is  an  illustra- 
tion of  this  association  —  so  that  parental  love  is  a  natural 
image  of  the  love  of  our  heavenly  Father,  and  the  most 
beautiful  and  exalting  of  human  relations  is  the  basis  of 
the  simiUtude  wherein  our  Lord  is  represented  as  the 
Bridegroom. 

Love  is,  in  like  manner,  associated  in  us  with  God's 
eternal  purposes  concerning  us  as  the  heirs  of  an  endless 
hfe.     And  the  reflex  of  our  heavenly  love  is  its  sensibility 

—  the  light  of  the  soul  by  which  it  discerns  spiritual  truth 

—  the  truth  which  is  of  Love.  As  the  mother  has  no 
thought  of  duty  or  of  obligation  or  of  right  in  what  she 
does  for  her  child,  but  is  moved  solely  by  her  love,  so  the 
regenerate,  in  doing  the  Father's  will,  regard  not  these 
outward  bonds  or  any  ethical  obhgations  —  these  being 
extinguished  in  the  truth  of  Love  which  makes  us  free. 
In  the  kingdom  we  find,  instead  of  the  ethical  conscience 
distinguishing  between  right  and  wrong,  the  regenerate 
conscience  that  distinguishes  between  the  loving  and  the 
unloving  action. 

All  lesser  bonds  are  loosened  in  that  by  which  we  are 
united  unto  our  Lord.  "  He  that  loveth  father  or  mother 
more  than  me  is  not  worthy  of  me."  When  told  that  his 
mother  and  his  brethren  stand  without  desiring  to  speak 
with  him,  he  asked :  "  Who  is  my  mother  ?  and  who  are 
my  brethren  ?  "  adding,  "  Whosoever  shall  do  the  will  of 
my  Father  which  is  in  heaven,  the  same  is  my  brother  and 
sister  and  mother." 


MECHANICAL   RELIGION.  165 


XXXVIII 

The  worldly  estate  is  Captivity  —  that  of  the  Kingdom 
is  Release.     The  Christian  Sabbath,  iixed  upon  the  first 
instead  of  the  seventh  day  of  the  week,  so  as  to 
dissociate   it   from  the  Jewish    Sabbath,  is  the     oospd 
Lord's  day  —  no  longer  commemorating  God's        °f 
rest  from  toil,  since  He  ever  worketh  and  without 
weariness,  and  our  Lord  continues  His  work.     Often  did 
Jesus   rebuke   the  over-religious    Jews   because   of  their 
formal  and  ceremonious  observance  of  their  Sabbath.     It 
was  natural  that  they,  who  themselves  added  continually 
to  men's   burdens,  should   make   the    Sabbath  a  day  of 
bondage. 

There  is  in  all  men  who  exclude  the  divine  life  the 
tendency  toward  a  mechanical  system  of  religion,  making 
their  faith  as  unvital  as  their  worldly  operation.  Having 
shut  God  out  of  their  hearts,  they  make  a  God  after  their 
own  lifeless  plan,  placing  Him  in  the  centre  of  a  mechan- 
ical universe,  and  conceiving  of  Him  as  an  arbitrary  Law- 
giver and  Judge;  who  hath  wrath,  tempered  by  mercy; 
who  hath  knowledge  and  memory,  as  man  hath,  taking 
conscious  note  of  every  act  and  holding  it  forever  in  re- 
membrance ;  who  standeth  somehow  outside  of  his  world 
of  Nature  and  humanity,  abandoning  it,  in  part,  and  for 
a  given  season,  to  His  equally  arbitrary  Adversary;  who 
holdeth  sacred  special  times  and  places,  and  who  requir- 
eth  the  service  of  men  in  connection  with  such  times  and 
places  —  a  service  of  solemn  feasts  and  offerings;  who 
regulateth  His  administration  according  to  the  desires 
of  His  court-favorites,  expressed  in  formal  supplications; 
and  who  suspendeth   His  judgment  for  some  final  day 

of  wrath. 
14 


i66  THE    INCARNATION. 

Now  it  was  our  Lord's  mission  to  deliver  man  from 
this  system.  The  utterances  of  divinely  inspired  prophets 
had  rebuked  it,  and  had  exhausted  the  resources  of  human 
speech  to  show  that  God  was  love  and  that  He  sought 
love  and  not  sacrifice. 

Our  Lord's  heresy  was  especially  manifest  in  his  treat- 
ment of  the  Jewish  Sabbath.  He  particularly  selected 
that  day  for  his  works  of  healing,  in  order  that  he  might 
set  upon  it  the  impress  of  man's  deliverance  instead  of  his 
bondage.  He  declared  that  the  Sabbath  was  made  for 
man  and  not  man  for  the  Sabbath. 

His  followers,  in  choosing  for  their  Sabbath  the  day 
of  his  resurrection,  gave  it  its  most  joyous  meaning,  thus 
associating  it  with  man's  release  from  the  power  of  death. 

In  every  way  our  Lord's  Gospel  is  that  of  Release  — 
release  from  weariness,  from  care,  from  all  solicitudes,  from 
all  questionings,  from  conflict,  from  all  the  maxims  and 
traditions  and  commandments  of  men,  from  all  outward 
authority,  from  the  lien  upon  the  soul  of  material  posses- 
sions, from  the  strife  of  ambition,  from  the  bonds  of  sin 
and  from  the  power  of  death. 

This  Gospel  reverses  all  the  conceptions  of  a  mechani- 
cal religion.  It  teaches  the  divine  service  of  humanity 
rather  than  the  human  service  of  God.  He  who  showeth 
the  Father  unto  us  saith,  "I  came  not  to  be  ministered 
unto  but  to  minister."  God  needeth  not  our  service,  but 
He  calleth  us  to  co-operation  with  Him  in  this  service  of 
humanity.  "I  have  not  called  you  servants  but  friends." 
The  true  Master  of  all  is  the  servant  of  all. 


THE  BOND    OF  LOl^E.  167 


XXXIX 

The  freedom  of  the  Kingdom, .  like   that  of  Nature, 
while  it  is  a  liberation  from  all  arbitrary  or  conventional 
regulation   from  without,   is  not  released  from 
law.     Love  is  Law  as  well  as  Liberty.     It  has        ^f 
its  own  bond — the  closest  of  all,  the  most  real    Spiritual 

.   .  Law. 

of  all — that  of  life  unto  life.     If  spiritual  opera- 
tion  is   spontaneous    and   self-moved,  it    is   also   self-re- 
strained ;  it  is  bound  back  to  its  central  source.     Until  we 
live  the  life,  we  know  not  its  law,  which,  like  the  laws  of 
Nature,  evades  all  mental  analysis. 

We  speak  of  a  natural  law  as  if  we  comprehended  it, 
because  we  have  discovered  some  mathematical  feature 
thereof  What  knowledge  have  we  of  the  attraction 
which  we  call  Gravitation  ?  We  can  measure  its  velocity 
and  the  variation  thereof  according  to  distance.  But  this 
restraint  of  motion,  which  is  as  vital  as  motion  itself — 
what  knowledge  of  it  have  we  ?  All  but  its  mathematics 
escapes  our  analysis.  It  is  the  bond  of  unity  and  har- 
mony in  the  universe.  It  is  to-day  what  it  was  when  the 
morning  stars  sang  together.  It  is  indeed  the  tonality  of 
that  song  still  continued.  And  it  is  in  musical  tonality, 
with  its  accord  and  inward  obligation,  that  we  have  the 
nearest  symbol  of  natural  or  spiritual  harmony. 

This  harmony  is  not  the  result  of  educadon,  training, 
discipline.  That  which  is  the  result  of  these  is  only  a 
simulation  of  the  harmony. 

The  spiritual  life  has  system  —  the  organisation  of  its 
attractions — the  vital  series  distributing  and  at  the  same 
time  illustrating  the  harmony.  The  kingdom  has  its 
mirror  in  all  the  apparent  contradictions  that  constitute 
the  harmony  of  what  we  call  the  material  world — in  its 


1 68  THE  INCARNATION. 

attractions  and  repulsions,  its  restraints  and  accelerations, 
its  contractions  and  expansions,  its  waiting  and  following, 
its  hungers  and  satisfactions,  its  equilibrium  and  disturb- 
ance, its  takings  and  leavings,  its  losings  and  findings,  and 
its  movements  of  flight  and  return. 

The  spiritual  Hfe  has  the  discipHne  of  discipleship  —  of 
following,  of  patience,  of  entire  submission  to  the  mastery 
of  the  divine  life,  a  mastery  which  is  ministration. 

The  children  alone  are  free.  The  outward  law,  like 
justice,  belongs  only  to  that  perverted  life  which  has  lost 
the  divine  likeness,  and  it  cannot  be  given  up,  without  the 
confusion  of  anarchy,  except  as  this  worldly  perversion  is 
given  up  for  the  new  life  of  the  kingdom. 

XL 

The  kingdom  of  heaven,  the  union  of  man's  will  with 

God's  will  in  perfect  love,  is  not  revealed  by  our  Lord  as 

a  kingdom  having  relation  to  time — /.  <?.,  to  time 

Earthly  Life  as  past,  present  and  future :  it  is  eternal,  and  its 

not  a      Y\k  is  eternal  life.     It  is  not  to  be  thought  of  as 

Probation.        ...  . 

distinctively  the  Future  Life. 

The  "  World  to  Come  "  is  that  which  is  to  displace  the 
world  that  is.  It  does  not  matter  7u/ie?i  we  are,  or  where: 
our  vital  concern,  as  children  of  the  kingdom,  is  not  with 
portions  or  parcels  of  what  we  call  space  and  time,  but 
with  their  wholeness,  as  God  regardeth  them — with  the 
Eternal. 

The  kingdom  hath  a  forward  look  as  related  to  our 
hope,  our  expectation,  and  not  to  ours  alone  but  to  the 
hope  and  expectation  of  the  entire  creation.  It  is  "  to 
come."  It  is  not  postponed  to  some  other  world.  Our 
earthly  existence  is  not  an  experiment.  The  worldly 
scheme  of  life  is  an  experiment,  and  is  on  trial;  but  we 


OUR    LIFE   NOT  AN   EXPERIMENT.  169 

cannot  so  regard  Nature  or  God's  purpose  respecting 
humanity.  Perverted  human  nature  —  antagonising  that 
purpose,  and  in  hke  manner  antagonising  all  Nature  out- 
side the  scope  of  its  perversion — is  indeed  a  by-play.  It 
is  an  attempt  to  live  without  God  in  the  world.  It  is  a 
house  built  on  the  sand,  and  cannot  endure,  since  it  defies 
both  God  and  Nature.  It  is  to  be  displaced  by  the  life 
of  the  kingdom,  which  is  to  come  "  on  earth  as  it  is  in 
heaven."  It  is,  therefore,  worldliness  alone,  not  our  earthly 
existence,  which  is  on  probation ;  it  is  this  only  which  can 
come  to  judgment,  and  it  is  being  judged  at  every  stage  of 
its  development,  condemned  by  its  own  hoUowness,  tested 
by  the  spirit  of  love  as  revealed  in  the  new  life  of  the 
kingdom,  weighed  in  the  balances  and  found  wanting. 
It  is  a  blasphemy  to  say  of  aught  which  God  hath  or- 
dained that  it  is  the  mere  scaffolding  of  His  House  of 
Life.     He  buildeth  not  that  way. 

Unto  the  Buddhist  all  conscious  existence  is  an  evil.  He 
seeks  not  the  way  of  life  but  the  way  out  of  life,  into  the 
Nirwana.  But  Buddhism  is  not  Christianity.  Our  Lord, 
at  one  with  God,  at  one  with  Nature,  betrayeth  nor  deni- 
eth  either,  but  maketh  us,  in  so  far  as  we  conform  unto  his 
image,  at  one  with  both.  This  is  the  consummation  of 
our  deliverance,  the  largest  meaning  of  his  incarnation  — 
his  full  atonement. 


XLI 

But  they  tempt  him — these  Sadducees,  who  believe 
not  in  the  Resurrection — with  a  problem.     The  woman 
who  had  seven  husbands,  whose  wife  shall  she 
be  in  the  Resurrection  ?  Etemai 

Life. 

Our  Lord  was  in  several  instances  tempted 
in  this  manner  for  his  entanglement,  and  he  made  each 


170  THE   INCARNATION. 

case  an  occasion  for  some  new  unfolding  of  the  kingdom. 
We  have  seen  how  it  was  when  they  brought  unto  him 
the  sinful  woman  —  how  the  love  in  him  became  in  their 
hearts  a  sword,  while  unto  hers  it  became  grace  and  hope. 
So,  when  a  problem  of  this  world's  political  economy  was 
presented  to  him  in  the  question  of  tribute.  He  had 
already  taught  his  disciples  that  as  children  they  were 
released  from  this  obligation,  yet  had  set  them  the  ex- 
ample of  submission.  But  now  that  the  question  is  put 
for  his  confusion,  he  saith  nothing  of  this  freedom.  He 
asks  for  a  penny,  draws  attention  to  Caesar's  image  and 
superscription  thereon,  and  saith,  "  Render  unto  Caesar 
the  things  that  are  Caesar's  and  unto  God  the  things  that 
are  God's."  He  says,  in  effect :  "  It  is  not  a  vital  matter 
—  this  tribute;  it  concerns  not  the  life  of  the  kingdom; 
but  it  is  vital  that  ye  yield  unto  the  claims  of  this  life  — 
that  ye  render  unto  God  the  things  which  are  His." 

But  this  problem  propounded  by  the  Sadducees  is  not 
a  question  of  the  Mosaic  law  or  of  political  economy;  it 
touches  the  Future  Life  and  man's  confused  speculations 
respecting  it.  The  question,  as  put,  however,  has  no 
spiritual  meaning,  but  regards  the  claims  of  marriage, 
which,  even  under  human  law,  are  annulled  by  death. 
Our  Lord,  in  reply,  says  nothing  of  this  legal  limitation. 
In  the  divine  scheme  it  is  life  not  death  which  looseth. 
He  shows  that  in  the  kingdom  there  can  be  no  such 
problem ;  in  its  life  there  is  no  marrying  or  giving  in  mar- 
riage—  that  is  a  relation  which  concerns  us  not  as  the 
heirs  of  an  eternal  life.  Moreover,  as  children  of  the  king- 
dom death  itself  concerns  us  not.  God  is  not  the  God  of 
the  dead  but  of  the  living,  for  all  live  unto  Him.  Though 
in  the  physical  sense  we  die  every  moment,  yet  He  taketh 
account  of  Hfe  only.  The  Resurrection  itself  illustrates 
the  nothingness  of  death. 


IVE   KNOIV  NOT  IVHAT  WE    SHALL    BE.       171 

Just  as  our  Lord  hath  said,  "  Whoso  eateth  of  the  bread 
of  Hfe  shall  not  hunger  any  more,"  meaning  that,  though 
he  may  have  physical  hunger,  yet  spiritually  he  hath  un- 
failing sustenance,  so  now  he  saith  that  the  children  of  the 
kingdom  have  everlasting  life :  birth,  marriage,  death,  in 
the  physical  sense,  whatever  they  may  mean  in  connection 
with  God's  special  purposes  concerning  us  in  time,  do  not 
pertain  to  His  eternal  purposes  respecting  us. 

XLII 

It  is  not  necessary  to  so  limit  our  Lord's  meaning  as 
to  conceive  that  he  is  here  speaking  especially  of  what 
we  call  the  Future  Life.     He  has  regard  to  the  ^,  . 

Christ  gives 

spirit  of  man  which  liveth  forever,  and  to  the      us  no 
life  which  they  have  that  are  born  of  the  Spirit  in^kations 
and  that  are  partakers  of  his  resurrection.    Some      of  the 
of  those  to  whom  he  is  speaking  have  been  born 
again ;  yet  are  they  subject  to  physical  death,  which  even 
he  is  to  suffer  who  is  the  Lord  of  the  heavenly  kingdom. 
Because,  upon  another  occasion,  he  said,  "  There  be  some 
among  you  that  shall  not  see  death,"  many,  wilHng,  like 
the  Sadducees,  to  put  him  in  the  wrong,  have  insisted  that 
he  was  predicting  the  end  of  the  world  as  to  come  within 
that  generation.      Possibly  some   such  construction  may 
have  been  put  upon  his  words  by  his  disciples — though 
that  is  by  no  means  proven — but  it  is  clear  that  he,  when- 
ever he  speaks  of  everlasting  life,  means  the  life  of  the 
kingdom,  the  spiritual  life. 

He  gives  us  no  speculations  respecting  a  future  life. 
Aside  from  his  resurrection,  he  hath  not  lifted  the  veil. 
Immortality  is  brought  to  light,  but  we  know  not  what  we 
shall  be — only  that  we  shall  be  like  unto  him.  There  is 
nothing  in  what  he  hath  revealed  unto  us  which  either 


172  THE   INCARNATION, 

affirms  or  denies  the  continuance  of  Nature  or  our  con- 
tinued participation  in  her  procession  of  generations — 
nothing  which  affirms  or  denies  the  dreams  of  our  poets 
and  the  speculations  of  our  sages  to  the  effect  that  in  such 

a  participation 

"  We  have  ever  been 
And  evermore  shall  be." 

If  we  know  not  what  we  shall  be,  neither  do  we  know 
what  Nature  shall  be,  in  her  on-going  from  strength  unto 
strength.  There  is  no  antagonism  between  the  Natural 
and  the  Spiritual.  Humanity  has  been  bound  up  with 
Nature  from  the  beginning,  and,  through  the  Incarnation, 
this  bond  has  become  a  sacrament.  If  we  are  to  suppose 
that  any  change  has  passed  upon  what  we  call  the  mate- 
rial world,  in  consequence  of  or  in  sympathy  with  man's 
errors,  it  has  not,  as  we  have  seen,  been  such  as  to  affect 
the  correspondence  of  its  meanings,  spiritually  inteq:)reted, 
with  those  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  as  revealed  by  our 
Lord ;  and,  if  there  has  been  any  change  due  to  the  per- 
version of  human  life,  then  may  we  expect  that  Nature 
will  in  like  manner  respond  unto  the  renewals  of  our  life. 

XLIII 

Whence  this  contempt  of  Nature,  that  we  should  ex- 
pect divorcement  from  her  ?     Is  she  not  the  embodiment 
of  the  Eternal  Word  ? 
KiSom        St.  Paul,  in  his  distinction  between  the  Nat- 
not  opposed  m-al  and  the  Spiritual,  does  not   by  the   term 
Natural  mean  that  which  pertains  to  this  divine 
manifestation,  but  that   which  pertains  to  man's   corrupt 
and   perverse   nature.     By  the  "natural   man"   and   the 
"  natural  body,"  he  means  man's  corrupt  nature  and  cor- 
rupt carnal  manifestation  of  that  nature.     He  has  no  con- 


THE   COMPLETE    RECONCILIATION.  173 

tempt  for  flesh  and  blood,  else  he  would  not  speak  of  the 
human  body  as  the  temple  of  God. 

Our  Lord  never  opposes  the  kingdom  to  Nature  but  to 
"  this  world  " —  that  is,  to  the  whole  scheme  of  man's  per- 
verted and  unnatural  life.  Instead  of  divorcing  us  from 
Nature,  it  is  a  part  of  his  redemption  that  he  restores  Na- 
ture unto  us.  And  unto  her  are  we  reconciled,  as  unto 
God.  When  this  reconciliation  is  complete,  all  strife  will 
cease,  even  God's  loving  strife  and  saving  anger  in  us,  lost 
in  divine  satisfaction  and  peace  and  joy.  Nothing  shall 
separate  us  from  the  love  of  God. 

XLIV 

We  are  reconciled  to  all  of  Nature.  We  say  not,  "And 
there  shall  be  no  more  Sea." 

For  the  Sea  is  no  longer  haunted  by  the  dread  phan- 
toms of  our  fear.  This  watery  element,  which  is  the 
greater  part  of  our  fleshly  substance,  as  it  is  ^^ 
also  the  greater  part  of  the  earth,  the  symbol  of 
of  dissolution,  being  the  greatest  solvent  in  Na-  '  ^  ^^' 
ture,  and  therefore  the  Way  of  Death  in  scientific  as  well 
as  mythological  association,  is  also  the  Way  of  Life,  since 
it  not  only  undermineth  the  hard  and  beareth  away  the 
old,  but  buildeth  up  the  new;  is  the  symbol  of  flowing 
freedom, —  of  loosening  strength, — of  cleansing, — of  ready 
responsiveness  unto  heavenly  drawings  and  unto  all  the 
calls  of  life, —  of  marvellous  transformations  from  earthly 
to  heavenly  shapes  and,  also,  of  the  return  from  the  heav- 
enly to  the  earthly  —  in  the  gracious  dew,  in  refreshing 
showers,  through  streams  that  gladden  the  earth  and  again 
find  their  way  unto  the  mighty  deep, —  the  symbol  also  of 
safety  in  its  very  openness,  away  from  the  perfls  of  solid 
reefs,  and  of  a  strength  which,  in  all  its  buffetings,  still 


174  THE   INCARNATION. 

beareth  us  up,  so  that,  even  in  its  storms,  it  is  more  faith- 
ful than  is  the  soUd  land  when  convulsed  and  shaken 
under  our  feet. 

XLV 

And  we  say  not,  "  There  shall  be  no  more  Night." 

For  it  is  even  He  who  hath  awakened  and  quickened  us 

who  also  giveth  us  sleep  —  not  only  the  rest  for  weariness, 

but  the  release  from  the  tension  of  wakefulness 

Ordinance  itsclf.     Evcn  that  which  is  incidental  to  imper- 

'f        feet  sleep  (because  our  waking  Hfe  is  not  wholly 

full  and  round)  —  the   Dream  —  is  in  a  vague 

and  shadowy  way  significant  of  a  freedom  of  movement 

which  defieth  all  limitations  of   space  and  time.      But, 

though  we  wearied  not,  nor  slept,  nor  had  the  freedom 

of  the  dream,  but  were  to  wake  and  watch,  still  hath  the 

Night  a  release  from  the  confinement  of  the  near  sunlight, 

which  veileth  the  immensities  of  space.     If  Day  unto  Day 

uttereth  speech.  Night  unto  Night  showeth  knowledge. 

Listen  to  the  lesson  of  the  Stars  : 

"We  are  First  and  Last — it  is  thou,  O  Son  of  Man, 
made  in  the  image  of  God,  who  art  Last  and  First. 

"  We  show  unto  thine  eyes,  that  are  opened  by  the 
darkness,  the  vast  cycles  of  Space  and  Time. 

"  The  light  from  the  remotest  of  us  showeth  thee  that 
star,  not  as  it  is  now,  but  as  it  was  before  thy  race  was 
born  upon  the  earth.  Thus  is  the  Ancient  of  Days  pres- 
ent unto  thee,  with  his  very  glance  of  untold  ages  gone. 
So,  unto  this  remotest  of  us,  thou  art  visible,  not  now,  but 
untold  ages  hence.  If,  having  lived  thy  threescore  years 
and  ten  upon  the  earth,  thou  shouldst  be  borne  unto  the 
nearest  of  us,  and  couldst  therefrom  see  by  the  light  from 
the  earth  all  that  goeth  on  upon  its  surface,  thou  wouldst 


THE    ORDINANCE    OF   DEATH.  175 

behold  thyself  as  an  infant,  and  couldst  follow  step  by  step 
all  thine  earthly  pilgrimage,  so  that  what  thou  callest  thy 
past  would  appear  unto  thee  as  present  and  future ;  and 
thou  wouldst  seem  endowed  with  a  wondrous  gift  of 
prophecy,  since,  from  thy  memory  of  thy  past,  thou 
couldst   predict   what   is   to    come. 

"  Behold  what  thou  callest  Past,  Present,  and  Future,  is 
only  relative.  In  the  light  of  the  All-seeing  One  they  do 
not  exist.  So  that,  while  we  seem  unto  thee,  in  thy  fixed 
place,  the  measure  of  times  and  seasons  and  of  the  vast- 
ness  of  space,  yet,  could  we  give  thee  the  freedom  of  all 
our  realm,  thou  wouldst  see  that  Space  and  Time  are  but 
the  forms  of  thine  own  thought.  In  thought  thou  know- 
est  only  the  Divisible.  The  spiritual  knowledge  is  of  in- 
divisible Unity.  The  Now  of  the  Mind  hath  one  part  past 
and  one  part  to  come,  so  that  there  is  no  present.  Unto 
the  Spirit  there  is  only  endless  Becoming." 

XLVI 

Nor  do  we  say,  "There  shall  be  no  more  Death." 
For  Death,  of  which  night  is  the  image,  is  the  mightiest 
of  revelations. 

The 

In  itself  nothing.  Death  is  yet  the  open  door     Divine 
unto  Life.     Our  newness  of  life  every  moment  ^■■'''"^^"ce 

"^  of  Death. 

is  possible  only  through  the  death  that  is  in 
every  moment.  This  is  a  truth  confirmed  by  Science,  in 
her  faithful  testimony  to  Nature's  law.  But  when  the 
last  moment  cometh,  and  Death  claimeth  all  that  is 
sensibly  visible — here  Science  is  dumb.  Unto  her  a 
door  is  closed ;  but  unto  the  spiritual  vision  a  door 
is  opened,  even  as  the  stone  is  removed  from  the  tomb 
of  our  Lord.  It  is  because  of  the  completeness  of 
Death's  claim  that  entire  Newness  of  Life  is  possible. 


176  THE    IMCARNATION. 

Life,  without  Death,  would  be,  Uke  an  endless  day,  a 
prison-house  of  the  soul.  Life,  without  Death,  would 
itself  become  the  very  simiUtude  of  Death  —  of  Death 
that  bindeth  instead  of  releasing.  It  would  be  as  if  the 
sun  stood  forever  fixed  at  noon  in  the  brazen  zenith  — 
forever  preventing  the  larger  illumination  of  his  setting. 
Death  is  in  Nature  but  the  shadow  of  its  constantly 
renewed  birth;  yet — nay,  for  this  very  reason — is  this 
shadow  the  inspiration  of  Hfe.  Life,  as  an  eternally  fixed 
present,  would  be  Death ;  it  is  only  through  the  gracious 
ordinance  of  Nature  which  we  name  Death  that  Life  hath 
its  onward  movement — that  it  is  Life.  It  is  the  losing 
of  life  which  saveth  it ;  and  this  losing  is  through  the 
passing,  the  dying. 

So  vital  in  all  her  ordinances  is  Nature  that  even  her 
mortality  hath  the  semblance  of  life,  so  that  we  associate 
therewith  the  freedom  and  release  which  are  characteristic 
of  the  quickening  Spirit.  It  is  when  we  stay  the  process 
of  dissolution,  when  we  arrest  the  backward  movement  of 
the  shuttle,  that  life  becometh  stagnation  and  its  whole 
web  rotten.  Arrested  death  is  arrested  life;  and  it  is 
such  life,  rather  than  quick  death  itself,  which  is  the  true 
symbol  of  spiritual  death. 

And  we  welcome  death,  not  because  of  the  sorrow  and 
burden  of  hfe,  but  because  of  its  joy;  not  because  of  our 
pessimism  or  despair,  but  because  of  our  faith.  We  be- 
hold not  an  inverted  torch,  but  the  torch  burned  to  ashes 
—  thus  fully  proving  the  effectiveness  of  the  flame,  which 
itself  ever  liveth,  forever  consuming  the  old,  the  hard  and 
the  dry,  that  there  may  be  place  for  the  young  and  green 
and  tender.  We  pray  for  the  completeness  of  dissolution 
— nay,  like  Achilles  by  the  burning  pyre  of  Patroclus, 
even  for  its  haste — as  the  winter  cometh  with  its  frosts 
and  violent  winds  to  precipitate  the  processes  of  decay. 


THAT  LIFE   MAY  BE  ALL   IN  ALL.  177 

that  the  spring-time  may  not  be  delayed  in  her  coming, 
nor  lose  aught  of  her  freshness  and  verdure.  And  we 
thus  love  Death,  only  that  Life  may  be  all  in  all. 

XLVII 

Thus  are  we  reconciled  unto  Nature — even  unto  her 
cold,  her  darkness,  her  death,  seeing  that  through  these,  as 
through  the  quickness  of  life,  the  mortal  putteth   ^^^  ^^^_ 
on  immortality.  piete  Rec- 

Nature  is  ever  the  counterpart  of  our  Lord. 
The  temporal  hath  no  strife  with  the  eternal.  Like  the 
union  of  soul  and  body  is  the  union  of  the  heavenly  with 
the  earthly,  of  the  endless  life  of  the  kingdom  with  our 
mortal  life.  It  is  only  as  our  Lord  reviveth  in  our  hearts 
the  spiritual  meanings  of  Nature  and  of  the  Kingdom  that 
we  have  the  full  revelation  of  the  Father ;  and,  abiding  in 
him,  as  he  abideth  in  the  Father,  we  have,  even  in  this 
earthly  existence,  everlasting  life,  being  associated  with 
him  in  co-operation  with  the  eternal  purposes  of  an  infinite 
Love.  Even  while  we  inherit  time  we  are  the  heirs  of  eter- 
nity. Living,  we  live  in  Him  who  is  our  life ;  and  dying, 
we  yet  live  in  him.  The  greatest  of  all  beatitudes  is  this : 
"  Blessed  are  the  dead  who  die  in  the  Lord." 

XLVIII 

Ask  ye,  Beloved,  why,  in  contemplating  our  reconciha- 
tion  with  Nature,  we  especially  dwell  upon  those  of  her 
aspects  which  have,  throughout  the  cycle  of 
human  error,  been  associated  with  terror  and  ^Rg^^H*!'^ 
dismay  ?  How  could  be  so  clearly  shown  the 
deliverance  of  perfect  love  as  in  this  —  that  its  hope 
selects  the  very  places  of  fear  for  its  safe  habitation  ?    It  is 


1 78  THE   INCARNATION. 

not  that  we  love  darkness  rather  than  hght,  or  death  rather 
than  Hfe,  but  because  the  one  discloseth  the  heavenly  firma- 
ment full  of  hght,  and  the  other  unveileth  immortality. 

Though  the  glory  of  the  setting  sun  holds  in  promise  so 
vast  an  illumination,  yet  we  despise  not  the  glory  of  the 
dawn,  albeit  that  it  maketh  shallow  our  heaven.  The 
stars  are  distant  and  cold,  and  that  we  are  not  to  give 
them  that  long  and  full  regard  which  we  give  to  the  near 
sunlight  is  indicated,  in  that  it  is  while  they  shine  that 
men  sleep.  While  death  is  an  invitation  to  life,  being 
the  open  gate  thereof,  yet  it  is  life  itself  which  hath  the 
intimate  and  direct  hold  upon  us  here  and  now.  The  days 
of  Summer  are  the  longest  days. 

We  are  the  children  of  the  Resurrection,  and  the  dear- 
ness  of  the  earth  in  all  its  warm  and  joyous  life  under  the 
sun  is  the  greater  when  we  remember  that  our  Lord  re- 
turned thereto  from  the  tomb,  and  was  again  known  unto 
his  disciples  in  the  breaking  of  bread.  The  Sun,  for  whose 
coming  we  ever  look,  is  his  true  symbol,  for  his  Appear- 
ings  are  from  everlasting  to  everlasting. 

It  is  Newness  of  Life  that  we  seek,  and  this  we  have 
always,  having  his  life  in  us — the  Vine  which,  after  in- 
numerable vintages,  still  blossometh  in  all  its  branches. 
It  is  he  who  is  our  spring-time,  with  his  baptism  of  flame 
quickening  the  tender  buds  and  consuming  all  the  dead 
wood. 

He  came  eating  and  drinking,  and  those  who  were  with 
him  fasted  not,  because  of  the  presence  of  the  joyous 
Bridegroom.  He  was  no  ascetic,  but  the  giver  of  a  more 
abundant  Hfe,  restoring  unto  men  in  their  heavenly  purity 
all  earthly  delights. 

If  release  is  characteristic  of  the  kingdom,  so  is  return. 
Therein  nothing  halteth;  there  is  no  purgatorial  chasm 
between  Hfe  and  Hfe,  only  the  quick  death;  no  door  of  the 


THE   QUICKNESS   OF  SYMBOLS.  179 

Father's  many  mansions  is  ever  shut.  That  which  is 
taken  is  that  which  remaineth ;  even  as  in  sleep  we  let  go 
the  visible  only  to  wake  thereunto  and  clasp  it  afresh. 
We  wake  and  sleep,  not  knowing  which  is  better,  and  so 
we  know  not  whether  it  is  better  to  go  or  to  return ;  we 
only  know  that  it  is  the  way  of  Life. 

In  the  kingdom  of  heaven  there  are  paradoxes,  but  no 
contradictions.  It  hath  prodigality  of  life,  careless  abun- 
dance, yet  in  its  waste  no  want.  It  hath  also  prodigality 
of  death,  yet  is  the  movement  of  life  not  stayed.  Day 
swalloweth  up  Night  and  the  Night  the  Day,  yet  the 
glory  of  the  one  contradicteth  not  nor  annulleth  the  glory 
of  the  other.  Mastery  is  service  and  freedom  bondage, 
and  loss  is  gain.  The  harmony  is  complete  in  all  these 
antiphonies — of  the  Eternal  and  Temporal,  of  the  Heav- 
enly and  the  Earthly. 

XLIX 

He  hath  visited  us.     As  an  outward,  historical  phe- 
nomenon, the  Incarnation  hath  a  brief  period,  yet  is  it 
sufficient    for   its    divine   purpose.     What    had 
been   hidden   was   revealed   in  him,   and  what    Sy™^°'- 

'  ism. 

he  hath  revealed  can  never  more  be  hidden. 

What  mighty  meaning  is  there  for  us  in  this  Incarna- 
tion, a  meaning  commemorated  by  us  forever  in  a  blessed 
sacrament !  And  yet,  even  as  the  heavenly  manna  in  the 
wilderness,  lest  it  should  be  hoarded  as  an  earthly  thing, 
was  quickly  destroyed,  so  is  his  body  taken  wholly  away 
from  before  our  eyes,  lest  we  forget  that  it  is  the  Spirit 
that  quickeneth,  and  that  the  flesh  profiteth  not. 

The  letter  killeth,  the  spirit  giveth  life.  In  all  symbol- 
ism, the  sign  is  at  once  everything  and  nothing  —  every- 
thing because  in  itself  it  is  nothing.     If  we  stay  our  feet 


i8o  THE    INCARNATION. 

upon  the  thing,  if  we  rest  in  the  sign,  regarding  it  as 
something  in  itself,  it  becometh  the  body  of  death,  and, 
clinging  thereunto,  we  are  held  fast  as  in  a  tomb.  It 
should  be  to  us  but  the  stepping-stone,  from  which  we 
leap  unto  the  heavenly  meaning. 

The  word  as  a  means  of  communication  should  be  swift 
as  the  lightning  —  from  life  unto  life.  But,  if  we  lean 
upon  the  literal  word,  we  falter  and  are  betrayed ;  death 
entereth. 

So,  also,  with  the  means  of  life.  Any  material  thing, 
clung  unto  as  a  possession,  corrupteth  the  soul.  With  all 
things  must  we  deal  quickly,  while  we  are  in  the  way  with 
them,  else,  instead  of  helps,  they  become  our  adversaries, 
which,  loitered  with,  cast  us  into  prison.  To  give  thought 
unto  meat  and  drink  is  a  loitering  unto  death ;  in  bodily 
heaviness  the  lightness  of  the  spirit  is  lost.  Our  deeds  are 
"  stepping-stones  on  which  we  rise  to  higher  things  " ;  but 
the  best  deed  hindereth,  if  looked  back  upon.  "  Let  not 
thy  left  hand  know  what  thy  right  hand  doeth." 

All  revelation  is  quick  as  life ;  the  veil,  if  it  fall  not  at 
once,  becometh  a  shroud.  The  Mount  of  Transfiguration 
is  not  a  place  where  we  can  safely  say,  "  Let  us  stay  here 
and  build  tabernacles." 

And  the  incarnate  Word,  our  Lord,  he  is  indeed  the 
very  way  of  our  climbing.  Yet  if  we  look  for  him  in  the 
flesh,  he  is  not  here  —  he  hath  arisen.  He  hath  ascended 
into  heaven,  that  where  he  is  there  we  may  be  also. 

It  is  not  that  we  seek  translation,  as  from  one  place 
unto  another.  All  places  are  alike  in  His  realm,  and  He 
is  alike  in  every  part  thereof  No  change  that  can  come 
to  us,  not  even  death,  signifieth  such  translation.  The 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  within  us.  We  are  not  trans- 
planted into  it ;  it  is  planted  in  us. 

The  great  change  is  regeneration,  by  which  our  earthly 


THE   COMFORTER   AND   DISTURBER.  i8i 

life  is  rooted  not  in  the  worldly  but  in  the  heavenly — that 
is  in  God  Himself,  in  whom  we  Hve  and  move  and  have 
our  being. 


Our  Christian  life  is,  then,  at  once  a  heavenly  enfold- 
ing, and  an  earthly  unfolding,  according  to  the  heavenly 
type  —  the  image  of  the  Son.     We  constantly       ^^^ 
awake  in  his  likeness.     He  is  not  with  us  in  the    Heavenly 
body,  but  his  spirit  he  hath  left  with  us,  to  lead     3"  ^  ^^^ 
us  into  all  truth  —  to  take  the  things  of  Christ     Earthly 

Unfolding. 

and  show  them  unto  us. 

The  Word  become  flesh  was  not  the  revelation  of  any 
truth  new  in  itself,  but  of  what  had  been  the  divine  dis- 
position from  the  beginning.  Our  Lord  introduced  not 
a  new  divine  but  a  new  human  dispensation.  And  the 
spirit  which  he  leaveth  with  us,  this  also  was  with  all  men 
from  the  beginning,  but  they  knew  it  not ;  only  now  this 
spirit  hath  the  Christ  to  show  unto  us,  even  as  the  Christ 
hath  shown  us  the  Father. 

It  is  the  spirit  not  of  truth  only  but  of  love.  Though  it 
judgeth  not,  yet  judgment  cometh  through  its  presence 
and  operation ;  it  convinceth  of  sin,  as  light  convinceth  of 
shadow.  It  quickeneth  unto  life  everlasting,  and  we  know 
no  more  of  any  limitation  to  its  blessed  work  than  of  the 
way  thereof  It  is  ineffable  peace,  but  it  is  also  fire  and 
the  sword  —  the  cause  of  mighty  agitations,  divisions, 
disturbances  and  upheavals.  Ever  again  will  it  shake  the 
earth  with  healthful  commotion,  when  its  children  have 
settled  themselves  down  in  worldly  ease  and  complacency. 
It  is  the  Comforter,  but  the  destroyer  of  all  worldly  com- 
fort.    It  is  the  quickening  spirit  of  all  life,  which,  unto  the 

eye  of  sense,  is  forever  bringing  all  to  nought ;  and  unto  it 
1.5 


i82  THE    INCARNATION. 

the  entire  visible  universe  is  but  as  a  garment,  which,  at 
the  end  of  cycles,  that  unto  it  are  but  as  days,  it  foldeth 
up,  and  again  unfoldeth  unto  newness  of  life. 


END    OF    SECOND    BOOK. 


THIRD    BOOK 


THE  DIVINE  HUMAN  FELLOWSHIP 


THE   DIVINE   HUMAN    FELLOWSHIP 


OTHOU  divine  Spirit,  unto  whom  none  can  minister, 
but  who  art  ministrant  unto  all,  how  else  shall  we 
do  Thy  will,  but  as  we  cease  to  be  Thy  servants 
and  become  Thy  friends  in  ministration, —  how     second 
else,  indeed,  shall  we  find  Thee  but  as  we  love    i"carna- 

'  tion. 

one  another ! 

The  incarnate  manifestation  of  the  Father,  the  articulate 
Word,  hath  no  continuing  life  or  meaning  —  hath,  indeed, 
in  itself  no  significance  —  save  as  it  finds  an  embodiment 
in  a  loving  human  fellowship.  Our  Lord  found  no  truer 
way  of  showing  the  divine  mastery  than  by  washing  his 
disciples'  feet.  It  was  not  a  dramatic  exhibition  but  a  real 
explication.  It  was  one  of  the  divine  surprises  which 
not  only  bewildered  the  disciples,  but,  being  so  complete 
a  reversal  of  all  human  experience,  has  seemed  inexplica- 
ble ever  since,  save  as  it  is  considered  an  act  of  condescen- 
sion !  Even  the  coming  of  our  Lord  has  been  regarded 
as  a  divine  condescension.  There  is  no  divine  quality  in 
condescension  any  more  than  we  imitate  the  loving  Father 
in  condescending  unto  our  brethren. 

There  has  always  been  the  obstinate  refusal  of  man's 
self-will  to  take  the  divine  life  at  its  own  meaning.  Pagan 
faith  in  its  sincerest  attitude  never  spiritually  compre- 
hended the  idea  of  human  brotherhood. 

The  Gospel  would  have  been  arrested,  becoming  an 
abortive  failure,  if  the  spirit  of  love,  which  was  its  divine 


1 86  THE   DII/INE    HUMAN    FELLOIVSHIP. 

inspiration,  had  not  straightway  found  embodiment  in  a 
spontaneous  and  equal  fellowship,  not  of  saints  celebrating 
a  mystical  and  exclusive  communion,  but  of  poor,  frail, 
famishing  souls  who  broke  bread  from  house  to  house, 
seeking  to  find  in  brotherly  household  correspondences  the 
riches  of  divine  love  and  wisdom. 

We  can  know  our  Lord  for  what  he  really  is  to  us  only 
in  such  fellowship.  That  spiritual  dispensation  which  is 
the  further  revelation  of  him  has  no  operation  in  any  other 
way.  It  is  only  as  the  leaven  of  the  kingdom  works  in 
the  great  unwholesome  lump  of  sinful  humanity,  sweeten- 
ing it  to  divine  uses,  that  any  private  individual  blessed- 
ness is  possible.  No  man  liveth  unto  himself  Isolated 
man  is  denied  even  his  own  individual  humanity.  De- 
pendence is  the  basis  of  development.  This  is  true  in 
even  unregenerate  society  —  how  much  more  deeply  true 
in  an  association  which  is  based  upon  love,  and  which 
is  the  only  really  divine  communion! 

Our  interpretation  of  Christianity  as  a  development  of 
the  kingdom  in  the  world  cannot,  therefore,  exceed  the 
limits  of  this  fellowship.  In  so  far  as  we  find  indications 
of  this  living  Christian  brotherhood,  we  shall  find  a  new 
unfolding  of  spiritual  truth  even  beyond  that  of  the  Gos- 
pel, though  accordant  therewith.  No  truth  is  revealed 
apart  from  the  life  which  discloses  it. 

It  is  in  this  light  that  the  first  three  Christian  centuries 
are  of  absorbing  interest.  It  would  be  instructive  to  con- 
sider associations  based  upon  purely  scientific  theories  — 
reactions  against  irrational  worldly  economies;  it  would 
be  still  more  suggestive  to  follow  the  course  of  those  com- 
munities, social  or  religious,  which  have  had  their  origin 
in  a  sentiment  more  or  less  in  alliance  with  the  spirit  of 
the  early  Christians  —  reactions  against  social  conventions 
or  formal  ecclesiasticism.     But  we  should  find  nothing  in 


THE   ULTIMATE   GOSPEL.  187 

following  these  lines  so  large  or  so  vital  as  the  Christian 
movement  up  to  the  time  of  Constantine. 

The  first  Christian  generation  after  the  Ascension  of  our 
Lord  is  like  a  mountain  peak  piercing  the  heavens,  testify- 
ing to  the  mighty  force  which  raised  it;  and  to  its  lumi- 
nous height  all  Christendom  looks  back,  identifying  its 
exaltation  with  inspiration.  All  that  gives  it  this  place  in 
our  regard  is  the  fact  that  it  was  a  new,  spontaneous  and 
wholly  genuine  and  natural  embodiment  of  Christ  —  his 
larger  incarnation  in  humanity,  and  especially  in  a  com- 
munity of  unrespectable  sinners,  consisting  largely  of  slaves, 
outcasts  and  suspects.  Apart  from  such  an  embodiment 
the  truths  of  the  kingdom,  even  in  our  Lord's  unfolding 
of  them,  fail  of  any  earthly  issue.  Indeed,  this  larger  in- 
carnation of  the  Christ  is  a  new  unfolding  of  these  truths 
in  a  second  Gospel  wholly  our  own,  in  so  far  as  the  divine 
life  becomes  our  own,  marred  and  in  some  respects  tra- 
duced by  our  obstinate  perverseness,  but,  nevertheless, 
a  further  unfolding  of  the  kingdom.  To  catch  some 
glimpses  of  this  ultimate  Gospel  we  would  fain  dwell  long 
with  the  disciples  at  Jerusalem,  Antioch,  Ephesus  and 
Rome,  and  with  Paul  in  his  independent  world-wide  apos- 
tolate ;  and,  with  the  same  purpose,  we  would  follow  the 
lines  of  Christian  development  through  the  entire  Ante- 
Nicene  period,  along  the  ways  leading  to  numberless  mar- 
tyrdoms and  through  the  dark  thoroughfares  of  the  silent 
catacombs,  until  the  new  faith  —  whose  rapid  spread  over 
the  whole  Roman  empire  is  itself  the  revelation  of  its 
vitality  —  triumphs  without  a  struggle  over  the  final  array 
against  it  of  Pagan  elements  that  vanish  before  it  like 
mists  before  the  rising  sun. 

After  the  Imperial  adoption  of  Christianity,  and  during 
its  long  Roman  sepulture  in  the  Middle  Ages,  we  shall 
see  that  there  is  a  real  Christendom  under  its  ecclesiastical 


1 88  THE   DIVINE    HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 

mask  —  that  the  Christian  embodiment  in  human  fellow- 
ship still  goes  on,  since  it  is  God  and  not  the  church  that 
takes  care  of  the  kingdom. 

Finally,  in  the  accelerated  movements  of  modern  times 
we  spiritually  discern  only  the  divine  quickening  of  the 
Brotherhood,  while  even  yet  this  fellowship  is  not  visible 
as  an  outward  embodiment.  Now,  there  is  an  awakening 
in  the  church,  as  in  the  great  Wesleyan  revival;  and, 
again,  when  the  Lord  is  excluded  by  formal  ecclesiasti- 
cism  or  only  partially  accepted  by  a  halting  faith,  then  we 
behold  him  glorified  in  the  movements  of  the  world,  even 
by  those  who  are  not  called  by  his  name.  The  last,  the 
supreme  lesson  of  Faith  is  that  we  look  only  to  the  divine 
life,  as  operating  in  all  mankind,  for  the  determination  of 
its  own  issues ;  and  the  final  issue  is  universal  brother- 
hood, not  from  the  adoption  of  any  sociological  theory, 
but  from  the  radical  renewal,  at  its  very  source  in  the 
human  heart,  of  all  social  life. 

The  Spiritual  life,  as  the  realisation  of  the  Christ-life,  is 
not  an  inward  regard,  cherishing  a  private  good,  but  an 
outward  clasping,  the  showing  of  the  mastery  of  the  divine 
life  in  us  by  our  ministration  especially  unto  the  least,  the 
poorest,  the  most  unlovely.  If  we  have  set  out  to  find 
tlie  Palace  of  our  King,  resolving  that  we  will  enter  it  and 
live  with  Him,  even  as  the  most  abject  of  minions,  we  are 
not  in  the  right  way,  and  shall  never  see  the  Palace, 
nor  find  the  King.  He  is  serving  our  poor  brothers  in 
wretched  hovels  numberless  and  near  at  hand,  and,  if  we 
will  join  him  in  this  service,  we  shall  find  Him  there,  and 
every  hovel  will  seem  unto  us  His  Palace. 


THE   MANY  MANSIONS   OF  LOyE. 


II 

Hath  Joseph  of  Arimathea  prepared  a  tomb  for  our 
Lord  ?  Behold  how  quickly  it  is  a  cenotaph  !  The  veil 
is  entirely  withdrawn.  The  Christ  remains  with 
us  only  as  a  Spiritual  Life,  no  longer  embodied  ^^^^^^^^ 
in  a  single  life  but  in  humanity,  and  thus  to  even 
transcend  the  glory  of  his  earthly  life,  having  that  glory 
which  he  had  with  the  Father  before  the  world  was.  He 
hath  shown  us  the  Father,  and  to  do  this  hath  become 
the  Brother ;  but  now,  in  the  Brotherhood  of  man,  is  the 
Father  to  be  plainly  revealed  beyond  what  our  Lord  hath 
manifested  in  his  life  and  in  his  parables.  "  In  my  Father's 
house  are  many  mansions."  These  mansions  of  heavenly 
life  and  truth  we  are  to  enter  as  they  are  built  up  for  us  in 
loving  fellowship  one  with  another.  Our  Lord  goes  away, 
but  spiritually  he  comes  again.  Wherever  in  such  fellow- 
ship even  only  two  or  three  are  gathered  together,  he  is 
there.  The  works  which  he  hath  done  in  the  flesh  are  to 
be  surpassed  by  the  works  to  be  done  in  all  flesh.  If  he 
hath  surprised  us  by  his  unfoldings  of  heavenly  truth, 
what  vaster  surprises  await  us  in  the  actual  reaUsation  of 
human  Brotherhood  ! 

The  individual  spiritual  development  can  only  be  com- 
mensurate with  that  of  such  a  fellowship,  thus  divinely  re- 
inforced. There  is  no  growth  save  as  we  grow  into  one 
another,  fitly  joined  together  into  this  wonderful  temple. 
Even  more  than  our  Saviour's  love  for  us  doth  our  love 
for  one  another  disclose  the  glories  of  the  kingdom  and 
the  utter  poverty  of  worldliness,  for  it  is  only  thus  that  our 
Lord  can  really  be  with  us  as  the  Spirit  of  Love  and  of 
Truth.  Such  is  the  expansion  of  the  new  life  that  its  vital 
communication  is  quick  and  far  reaching  as  are  the  cur- 


190  THE  DiyiNE   HUMAN    FELLOIVSHIP. 

rents  of  natural  forces.  "  For  as  the  lightning  that  light- 
eneth  out  of  the  one  part  under  heaven,  shineth  unto  the 
other  part  under  heaven ;  so  shall  also  the  Son  of  man  be 
in  his  day."  He  shall  not  be  found  in  the  desert,  nor  in 
the  secret  chambers.  It  is  not  until  the  Gospel  of  the 
Kingdom  shall  be  preached  unto  all  nations  that  the  end 
can  be  —  the  fulfilment.  First  there  shall  be  the  partial  re- 
vealings,  the  lightening  now  here  and  now  there  under  the 
heaven,  and  sometimes  it  shall  seem  as  though  there  were 
no  light,  but  only  darkness,  but  finally  there  shall  be  the 
complete  illumination;  and  this  complete  revelation  can 
only  be  unto  all. 

It  is  in  this  associative  unfolding  of  a  vital  principle 
that  the  revelation  of  the  Father  through  the  Son  is  con- 
tinuous. In  our  Lord  himself  it  was  a  gradual  unfolding. 
We  can  see  how,  after  his  resurrection,  his  own  vision  ex- 
panded— his  feeling  of  the  committal  unto  him  of  all 
power  in  heaven  and  on  earth.  He  knew  that  in  his 
earthly  existence  the  revelation  was  incomplete,  save  as 
to  the  essential  principle  of  the  new  life — the  seed  whose 
field  was  the  world.  Only  of  her  children  could  the 
divine  wisdom  be  fully  justified.  It  is  a  peculiarity  of  his 
teaching,  as  compared  with  that  of  other  men,  that  it 
never  for  a  moment,  never  by  a  single  step,  passed  be- 
yond the  current  of  the  life,  never  leaped  beyond  the 
point  reached  in  a  real  progression.  There  was  the  for- 
ward look,  and  so  the  anticipation  by  him  of  his  death 
and  resurrection,  as  the  grape  ripening  in  the  sunshine 
fore-feeleth  the  wine-press  and  the  exaltation  of  its 
free  spirit.  But  beyond  this  there  was  in  him  no  knowl- 
edge. Of  the  coming  of  the  Son  not  even  the  Son 
knoweth,  but  only  the  Father.  And  all  the  truth  which 
he  clearly  saw  he  could  not  reveal  unto  his  disciples, 
because  they  could  not  then  bear  it.     He  could  tell  them 


THE   DIl/INE   ABUNDANCE.  191 

that  the  world  would  hate  them,  even  as  it  had  hated 
him,  but  what  a  dark  shadow  would  overwhelm  them  if 
he  were  to  tell  them  (for  he  knew  what  was  in  man)  of 
the  hour  to  come,  nay,  the  centuries,  during  which  his 
gospel  of  love  would  be  suppressed  by  those  calling  them- 
selves after  his  name  !  And  there  was  hopeful,  glorious 
anticipation  which  he  could  not  share  with  them  now. 
Therefore  he  would,  after  his  departure,  send  the  Spirit, 
who  should  lead  them  into  all  truth.  "  He  shall  glorify 
me ;  for  he  shall  receive  of  mine  and  shall  show  it  unto 
you."  The  revelation  would  come  in  its  own  season,  in 
the  real  situation,  at  the  vital  moment. 


Ill 

What  promises !  After  this  great  manifestation  of 
divine  love  and  wisdom  in  our  Lord — such  as  hath  never 
before  been  known  upon  the  earth — still  more       ^^^ 

is    to    be    shown    us  !  Spiritual 

There  is  no  storing  up  of  heavenly  manna.      "  °  '"^' 
The  abundant    life    overflows  with   prodigality,   even   as 
Nature  wastes  her  fragrance  and  bounty. 

How  different  is  this  from  the  conception  of  an  unvital 
faith !  Men  are  disposed  to  accept  rules  of  life  rather  than 
its  principles.  They  prize  a  system  of  penances  and  in- 
dulgences, as  one  determined  to  be  sick  stores  up  medical 
prescriptions.  They  would  have  life  limited  and  meas- 
ured out  to  them,  and  they  expect  through  formal  prayers 
to  receive  its  fruits,  which,  in  the  divine  method,  are  the 
results  of  growth  only.  They  would  substitute  strenuous 
effort  for  growth,  looking  unto  a  reward  rather  than  unto 
grace.  They  love  casuistry,  and  dote  upon  virtuous  econo- 
mies, thinking,  like  Judas,  of  alms-giving  whenever  love 
wasteth  her  precious  ointment.     They  prefer  a  life  which 


192  THE   DIVINE   HUMAN   FELLOWSHIP. 

they  can  regulate  with  precision,  and  exact  definitions  of 
faith  itself,  lest  in  a  divine  confusion  it  should  overflow 
their  mental  limitations.  They  nourish  the  belief  in  a  God 
who  keeps  His  place  while  they  keep  theirs — in  a  sus- 
pended judgment  and  a  postponed  heaven — jealous  lest 
in  some  way  the  well-defined  boundaries  between  the  hu- 
man and  the  divine,  between  this  world  and  some  better 
one,  should  be  broken  up,  and  the  unbalanced  abundance 
of  grace  should  flow  in  and  sweep  away  all  their  land- 
marks and  nice  adjustments,  precipitating  the  millennium. 

But  our  Lord  left  no  chart  for  the  guidance  of  life. 
Other  teachers  have  left  nothing  else.  The  children  of 
the  kingdom  need  no  chart  for  the  regulation  of  the  spir- 
itual life,  any  more  than  the  lilies  of  the  field  need  one  to 
show  them  the  way  unto  beauty  as  long  as  the  sun  is  in 
the  heavens.  The  sun  is  always  in  the  Christian's  heavens. 
Not  only  is  the  seed  sown  in  this  garden  divine,  but  the 
increase  thereof  also.  Our  Lord  was  not  a  preceptor — 
he  was  a  Life.  He  did  not  formulate  an  ethical  or  theo- 
logical system.  He  imposed  no  conditions,  save  that  of 
the  acceptance  of  this  life,  upon  his  followers.  When  he 
said  unto  the  young  man,  "  If  thou  wouldst  be  perfect,  go 
and  sell  all  thou  hast  and  give  unto  the  poor  and  come 
and  follow  me,"  he  was  not  enjoining  poverty  or  alms- 
giving, but  the  following,  and  this  even  was  not  a  condi- 
tion, since  one  who  performed  miracles  in  his  name,  and 
yet  was  not  one  of  the  group  of  his  disciples,  was  counted 
as  with  him ;  only  he  that  gathereth  not  with  us  scattereth 
abroad.  The  Spirit  that  quickens  determines  also  the 
issues  of  life. 

After  our  I>ord's  departure,  faith  in  him  was  still  the 
same  —  the  complete  surrender  of  man's  wiU  unto  God's 
will,  and  co-operation  therewith.  Man  was  not  left  alone 
to  regulate  his  life  in  accordance  with  any  outward  sys- 


THE    GALILEAN   COMMUNITY.  193 

tern.  "If  a  man  love  me,  he  will  keep  my  word;  and 
my  Father  will  love  him,  and  we  will  come  unto  him,  and 
make  our  abode  with  him." 


IV 

While  he  was  with  his  disciples,  our  Lord  had  made 
his  abode  with  them,  and  they  were  as  one  household. 
They  had  left  all  to  follow  him.     There  were 

.  The 

Others  who,  like  Mary  and  Martha  and  Lazarus,  Galilean 
of  Bethany,  while  retaining  separate  households,  Commu- 
fully  accepted  him  as  one  sent  from  the  Father. 
There  was  no  attempt  on  his  part  to  establish  an  order. 
His  disciples  were  not  yet  called  Christians ;  the  name 
was  not  known  in  his  lifetime,  nor  for  many  years  after- 
ward. They  were  all  workmen,  and  he  was  often  with 
them  as  they  wrought.  They  were  united  as  brethren, 
but  so  little  stress  is  laid  upon  their  communism  that  we 
should  not  know  —  but  for  an  incident  related  in  the  story 
of  the  Last  Supper  —  that  they  had  a  common  purse. 
Their  wants  were  simple,  and  no  special  value  was  at- 
tached to  material  possessions;  moreover,  the  hospitality 
of  many  homes, — like  that  at  Bethany, —  was  freely  ex- 
tended to  the  little  company.  How  frequently  we  have  a 
glimpse  of  Jesus  as  a  guest  of  those  outside  of  the  closely- 
united  group,  even  at  the  houses  of  publicans  and  sinners ; 
it  was  on  one  of  these  occasions  that  the  woman  came  in 
and  anointed  his  feet. 

The  disciples  were  so  much  occupied  with  the  spiritual 
truth  unfolded  to  them  by  the  Master  that  they  gave  no 
thought  to  outward  forms.  This  community  in  no  way 
resembled  such  an  organisation  as  that  known  to  us  as  the 
church.  He  was  indeed  establishing  a  new  society  upon 
the  basis  of  a  new  life,  which  would  have  its  own  embodi- 


IQ4  THE   DiyiNE   HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 

ment.  It  was  because  he  had  perfect  faith  in  the  divine 
hfe  that  he  could  leave  its  embodiment  to  take  care  of 
itself.  For  the  same  reason  that  he  left  no  system  of 
ethical  teaching  for  the  regulation  of  the  outward  life,  he 
also  showed  no  solicitude  respecting  the  future  outward  ex- 
pression of  faith  in  creed  or  ritual.  What  to  the  iconoclastic 
reformer  is  first  was  the  last  to  him.  The  life  in  him  was 
a  transforming  life ;  he  was  always  turning  water  into  wine 
—  better  wine  than  had  been  drunken.  He  always  made 
it  clear  that  old  bottles  could  not  hold  the  new  wine. 
But  what  was  old  had  once  been  new.  The  truths  which 
he  revealed  had  been  hidden  from  the  foundation  of  the 
world,  but  they  were  as  new  in  their  hiding-place  as  they 
were  in  his  unfolding.  Thus  in  the  store-house  of  the 
kingdom  were  treasures  both  old  and  new.  Old  things 
would  pass  away,  but  not  until  they  were  fulfilled  — 
until  the  newness  in  them  reappeared  in  the  heavenly 
transformation. 

Nowhere  are  the  divine  love  and  wisdom  in  our  Lord 
more  clearly  manifest  than  in  his  treatment  of  the  Jewish 
faith  —  love,  in  that  he  leaned  unto  the  old,  with  the 
yearning  he  had  unto  prophet-killing  Jerusalem;  wis- 
dom, in  that,  while  he  knew  that  every  plant  which  the 
Father  had  not  planted  should  be  rooted  up,  he  also  knew 
that  the  new  and  tender  plant  must  first  be  born  and  grow 
before  it  could  displace  the  old.  He  never  touches  the 
law  but  he  brings  back  its  inward  newness,  as  love,  and 
in  doing  this  he  is  wont  to  use  the  very  phrases  of 
the  Prophets.  How  dear  to  him  is  the  free  and  simple 
worship  of  the  synagogue !  While  he  denounces  Pharisa- 
ism, and  prefers  love  to  sacrifice,  yet  how  diHgently  he 
prepares  the  Passover,  making  it  his  last  supper  with  his 
disciples.  The  feast — brought  back  to  its  original  mean- 
ing as  a  sacrament  rather  than  a  sacrifice,  before  ever 


THE   NEIV  AND    THE    OLD.  195 

there  was  the  law  or  the  priesthood — is  celebrated  in  the 
usual  way.  They  recline  about  the  table,  the  cup  of  wine 
is  passed  around,  and  the  bread,  and  the  hymn  is  sung 
(the  last  part  of  the  Hallel)  j  and  while  these  old  features 
are  preserved,  the  new  and  forward-looking  significance  of 
the  supper  is  developed  without  violence  to  any  former 
association.  Almost  insensibly  the  new  leaven  leaveneth 
the  whole  lump.  Truly  the  kingdom  cometh  without 
observation.  Our  Lord  doth  not  say  unto  his  disciples, 
"  Come,  let  us  build  a  new  structure,  leaving  the  old,  then 
shall  we  see  a  new  life  " ;  but  he  saith,  "  Love  is  the  ful- 
filling of  its  divine  germ  in  this  old  body  of  faith,  which 
hath  become  decrepid  in  wearily  treading  the  hard  paths 
of  sacrifice  and  formal  righteousness.  Lay  not  violent 
hands  from  without  upon  this  decrepitude,  accomplishing 
no  more  than  if  ye  whiten  the  sepulchre.  In  this  very 
tomb  let  the  seed  be  planted.  Out  of  new  hearts  love 
shall  grow,  in  the  shadow  of  these  ruins,  its  fresh  tendrils 
clinging  thereunto  with  the  strength  of  softness,  first 
covering  them  with  its  beauty,  embracing  them  with  all 
its  joyous  might — awful  as  the  dawn — and  finally  bear- 
ing them  gently  down,  if  they  yield,  or,  if  they  resist, 
dissolving  them  in  its  subduing  flame." 

It  was  on  Sabbath  days  in  the  synagogue,  and  in  the 
great  annual  feasts  at  Jerusalem,  that  our  Lord,  in  the 
brief  period  of  his  public  ministry,  found  regular  ojDpor- 
tunities  for  preaching  the  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom.  But 
the  irregular  opportunities  were  perhaps  more  favorable — 
such  as  were  spontaneous,  and  incidental  to  his  imme- 
diate association  with  the  multitude  that  followed  him 
because  of  their  need,  and  in  whose  hearts  there  was 
a  direct  response  to  his  gracious  authority.  The  circum- 
stances of  his  life  in  the  country  brought  him  into  contact 
with  the  common  people,  who  heard  him  gladly ;  and  his 


196  THE   DiyiNE    HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 

discourses,  like  the  Sermon  ovt  the  Mount,  were  delivered 
in  the  presence  of  that  Nature  which  so  readily  lent  her- 
self to  the  happiest  illustration,  becoming  the  very  body 
to  his  divine  thought,  and  whose  peace  was  the  fit  emblem 
of  the  peace  he  gave  unto  men. 

How  beautiful,  as  they  are  presented  in  the  simple  nar- 
rative of  the  Gospels,  are  the  pictures  of  his  pastoral  rela- 
tions to  great  multitudes  and  to  his  little  flock !  And  what 
a  contrast  to  the  glimpses  we  have  of  his  life  in  Jerusalem, 
where  the  priests  and  the  Pharisees  are  dominant,  seeking 
to  destroy  him,  but  they  fear  the  multitude  who  look  upon 
him  as  a  prophet.  Here  he  is  brought  into  contact  with 
the  worldly  system,  entrenched  in  the  very  strongholds  of 
Jewish  ecclesiasticism.  It  is  from  this  centre  that  proceed 
nearly  all  the  elements  of  denunciation  and  strife  that 
trouble  the  peaceful  current  of  the  Gospel.  Out  of  the 
country  follow  the  multitudes  that  exalt  our  Lord  and 
strew  palms  in  his  path  and,  with  the  children,  sing  Ho- 
sannas  along  the  way  from  the  Mount  of  Olives  and  into 
the  Temple.  Out  of  the  holy  city,  that  other  procession 
along  the  way  of  the  Cross  unto  Golgotha ! 

And  as  the  world  persecuted  him  so  would  it  persecute 
his  disciples.  Therefore  the  Paraclete,  the  Spirit  of  Truth, 
was  to  be  given  them. 


"  If  I  go  not  away,  the  Comforter  will  not  come  unto 
you." 

Now,  it  is  not  to  be  understood  that  the  divine  Spirit 
has  seasons  of  presence  and  withdrawal.  It  is  the  source 
of  all  life,  and  ever  strives  with  man's  self-will  to  bring  it 
out  of  the  worldly  discord  into  the  heavenly  harmony. 
But,  from  our  attitude  toward  this  Spirit,  its  presence  has 


THE  HEAVENLY  VISION.  197 

diverse  meanings.     Not  received  by  us,  it  is  not  present 
in  any  vital  sense ;    there  are  no  "  fruits   of  the    Spirit." 
While  our  Lord  was  with  his  disciples,  the  Spirit       ^^^ 
was  also  present  with  them ;  to  receive  him  was    Paraclete 
to  receive  the  Spirit  also,  which  dwelt  in  him.      ™™'^^  • 

But  his  personal  incarnate  presence,  in  its  very  nearness 
to  sensible  vision,  in  its  strength  and  fulness,  held  in  abey- 
ance the  vaster  spiritual  vision,  even  as  the  sun  when  it 
shines  upon  us  hides  the  immeasurable  fields  of  light.  We 
have  seen  that  this  was  one  of  the  limitations  of  the  In- 
carnation—  one  which  our  Lord  himself  recognized;  and 
we  find  here  a  special  recognition  thereof 

While  this  strong  presence  was  with  them,  the  disciples 
referred  everything  to  him ;  their  attempts  to  heal  the  in- 
firmities of  others  were  sometimes  ineffectual;  they  were 
indisposed  to  take  the  initiative  in  action  or  in  speech  — 
and  it  is  a  special  office  of  the  quickening  Spirit  to  impart 
this  initiative  impulse.  Peter,  afterward  so  brave,  and 
destined  to  confront  the  most  cruel  martyrdom,  yet  thrice 
denied  his  present  Lord;  and  all  the  disciples  forsook 
Jesus  and  fled  when  he  was  seized  by  the  chief  priests 
and  elders. 

After  his  resurrection,  when  he  so  readily  appeared  and 
disappeared,  during  the  forty  days  before  he  was  finally 
parted  from  them,  the  disciples  received  a  larger  spiritual 
impression  from  his  words.  "Did  not  our  hearts  burn 
within  us,  as  he  talked  with  us  by  the  way  ?  "  Already 
the  limitation  of  his  personal  presence  was  to  some  extent 
removed  —  so  that  he  breathed  upon  them,  and  they  re- 
ceived the  Spirit.  Now  for  the  first  time  his  own  brethren 
in  the  flesh  —  death  having  broken  this  tie  of  kinship  — 
were  able  to  receive  him  as  their  Elder  Brother  in  the  Spirit. 

When  he  had  ascended  into  heaven,  his  disciples  had 
the  heavenly  vision  of  him.     All  the  fields  of  heaven  were 

IG 


198  THE    DII^INE    HUM/iN   FELLOJVSHIP. 

then  illumined  for  them.  Our  Lord  always  used  the 
phrase  "  in  heaven "  to  indicate  not  place  but  a  spiritual 
relation.  And  this  ascension  into  heaven  is  his  uphfting 
into  the  field  of  spiritual  vision,  just  as  his  second  com- 
ing is  not  as  a  babe  born  a  second  time  upon  the  earth, 
but  a  coming  "in  the  heavens" — the  spiritual  consum- 
mation of  the  kingdom. 

VI 

After  the  Ascension,  the  development  of  the  Christian 
Hfe,  left  wholly  to  the  children   of  the  kingdom,  is  also 
The       wholly  the   work   of  the   Spirit   in  them. 
Testament       The   children   receive   the    Spirit — all   alike. 
Christian    Jcw  or  Gcntile,   rich  or  poor,  learned  or  un- 
Prophecy.   jgarned,  for  God  is  no  respecter  of  persons.     It 
is  the  spirit  of  freedom,  and  no  one,  in  receiving  it,  re- 
ceives any  pre-eminence  in  authority,  either  in  matters  of 
faith  or  in  temporal  powers  or  privileges,  over  his  brethren. 
The  bonds  of  the  Spirit  are  those  by  which  each  becomes 
the  servant  of  all. 

If  our  Lord  made  the  removal  of  his  own  personal 
presence  the  basis  of  the  largest  spiritual  development, 
then  clearly  it  is  not  by  the  acceptance  of  any  other  per- 
son, as  standing  in  his  place,  as  his  vicegerent  in  earthly 
relations,  that  such  a  development  can  be  perfected. 

There  was  no  communication  of  Hfe  unto  the  immediate 
disciples  of  our  Lord  which  is  not  unto  all  his  followers. 
It  is  a  spiritual  communication  —  not  through  the  laying 
on  of  hands.  Every  one  receiving  the  Spirit  is  sent,  even 
as  Christ  was  sent. 

Every  one  receiving  the  Spirit  is  inspired,  and  becomes 
a  prophet  of  the  living  God.  With  our  Lord's  ascension 
the  Testament  of  the  Evangelists  was  closed,  and  a  new 


THE    TEST   OF    THE  SPIRIT.  199 

Testament  was  opened  —  that  of  Christian  Prophecy  or 
Interpretation.  We  speak  not  of  written  but  of  living 
testaments.  And  this  new  testament  of  Prophecy  re- 
mains open  unto  the  end  of  the  world.  There  may  be 
periods  of  silence  —  lasting,  possibly,  for  thousands  of 
years  —  but  these,  like  intervals  of  sleep,  do  not  break  the 
continuity  of  the  spiritual  life,  which  is  the  unbroken  cur- 
rent of  the  divine  life  in  human  operation,  not  manifest 
officially  or  within  ecclesiastical  limitations,  but  vitally  in 
every  one  of  the  sons  of  God. 

VII 

The  work  of  the  Spirit  in  us  is  both  in  our  life  and  in 
our  communication ;  and,  in  either  case,  our  Lord  shows 
whereby  he  may  be  tested.    "  He  shall  not  speak 
of  himself."     There  is  but  one  source  of  divine    The  Test 
Hfe   and   truth  —  that    is    God.     As  our  Lord      spirit 
utters  our  human  speech,  so  the  Spirit  moves  to 
a  like  utterance,  through  an  individual  voice ;  and,  before 
we  can   accept  the  communication,  we  must  plainly  see 
that  it  is  from  the  Father,  and  this  we  know  through  its 
correspondence  unto  the  divine  manifestation  in  Nature. 

As  our  Lord's  utterances  were  not  only  in  harmony 
with  natural  truth,  but  were  also  an  expansion  of  that 
harmony,  so  that  it  included  the  divinity  of  humanity,  as 
one  with  the  Father,  having  been  reconciled  unto  Him, 
there  is  therefore  this  further  test  of  all  spiritual  communi- 
cation —  that  it  shall  take  its  place  as  part  of  this  great 
harmony.  It  must  show  unto  us  the  things  of  Christ, 
bring  his  words  to  remembrance,  and,  moreover,  be  a 
further  revelation  of  the  kingdom  which  he  unfolded. 

Our  Lord,  knowing  what  was  in  man,  saw  that  there 
would  be  false  communications,  claiming  to  be  inspired  — 


200  THE   DiyiNE    HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 

false  authorities,  claiming  to  be  infallible.  How  cleariy 
his  words  forecast  these  departures  from  the  living  truth. 
He  saith  unto  his  disciples :  "  The  days  will  come  when  ye 
shall  desire  to  see  one  of  the  days  of  the  Son  of  Man,  and 
ye  shall  not  see  it.  .  .  .  And  then  if  any  man  shall  say 
unto  you,  '  Lo,  here  is  Christ ' ;  or  '  Lo,  he  is  there ' ;  be- 
lieve him  not.  .  .  .  For  there  will  arise  false  Christs 
and  false  prophets,  and  will  show  great  signs  and  won- 
ders, to  seduce,  if  it  were  possible,  even  the  very  elect, 
and  will  deceive  many." 

vin 

How  strong  was  our  Lord's  impression  that  by  leaving 

his  disciples  he  was  to  bring  them  spiritually  nearer  not 

only  unto  himself  but  unto  each  other !     At  his 

^'^^^L^'-    birth  the  angels  are  drawn  from  heaven  to  sing 

parted  Christ  o  r     i 

a  Reinforce-  congratulations  unto  the  earth  because  of  the 
"^SpiHt."'^  glory  it  had  received.  At  his  going,  being  up- 
lifted, he  drew  all  men  to  him.  If  this  glory 
had  not  been  shown  upon  the  earth,  neither  would  we 
have  known  it  as  a  heavenly  glory ;  but  having  seen  it  in 
the  flesh,  we  know  that  when  it  passes  from  us  it  becomes 
a  reinforcement  of  all  heavenly  powers  that  draw  us. 

Therefore  it  is  that  henceforth  unto  his  disciples  there  is 
an  accession  of  the  spiritual  life.  The  Spirit  speaks  unto 
them  in  the  voice  of  the  Bridegroom. 

Now,  being  drawn  nearer  unto  each  other,  they  more 
fully  understand  the  new  commandment  that  they  love 
one  another  even  as  he  hath  loved  them.  Returning 
unto  Jerusalem,  the  eleven  enter  into  an  upper  room, 
where  they  abide  together.  "  These  all  continued  with 
one  accord  in  prayer  and  supplication,  with  the  women, 
and  Mary  the  mother  of  Jesus,  and  with  his  brethren." 


THE  DISCIPLES'   RETROSPECT. 


IX 

In  the  history  of  the  world  there  is  no  chapter  so  im- 
pressive as  the  brief  record  left  us  of  this  little  Galilean 
community  at  Jerusalem. 

What  retrospection  was  theirs  who  were  here  pentecost. 
gathered  together  during  those  quiet  days,  the 
last  week  of  the  interval  between  the  two  great  feasts,  the 
lull  preceding  the  whirlwind  of  their  enthusiasm !  Their 
Lord  had  been  taken  from  them,  but  now  only  was  he 
present !  To  the  mother,  the  brethren,  and  the  disciples, 
how  many  situations  are  recalled  that  are  now  for  the  first 
time  real — how  many  words,  dimly  understood  as  they  fell 
upon  their  ears,  but  now  filled  with  a  meaning  as  broad  as 
the  heaven  into  which  he  had  been  taken  from  their  stead- 
fast gaze !  The  familiar  scenes  by  the  Sea  of  Galilee  under 
the  Syrian  sky ;  those  later  scenes  of  tumult  in  the  city,  of 
the  agony  in  Gethsemane  while  they  slept,  of  the  multi- 
tude coming  with  swords  and  staves  and  torches  and  lan- 
terns, unto  which  he  was  betrayed  by  one  who  had  been 
numbered  with  themselves;  the  terrible  crucifixion;  his 
appearings  unto  them  after  his  resurrection,  were  now  all 
gathered  together  into  one  sublime  glory  of  infinite  peace 
and  passion — a  glory  which,  in  its  spiritual  meaning,  tran- 
scending all  ordinary  personal  associations,  could  only  be 
revealed  after  that  it  had  passed.  Now,  as  never  before, 
could  they  comprehend  that  this  gracious  visitation  was 
not  for  them  alone  but  for  all  men.  Now  understood 
they  what  he  meant  when  he  said,  "  Ye  shall  be  witnesses 
unto  me,  in  Jerusalem  and  in  all  Judea  and  in  Samaria, 
and  unto  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth." 

The  love  which  had  been  bom  in  their  hearts  had  now 
its  spiritual   expansion,  impelling  them  not   only  toward 


202  THE   DIl^INE    HUM/IN   FELLOIVSHIP. 

community  as  brethren  but  toward  the  largest  communi- 
cation of  the  life  which  they  had  received. 

The  first  fruit  of  the  Spirit  was  their  "one  accord." 
"And  when  the  day  of  Pentecost  was  fully  come,  they 
were  all  with  one  accord  in  one  place."  It  was  the  first 
Christian  Assembly. 

Here  again  it  is  significant  that  this  assembling  together 
should  have  been  upon  the  oldest  festival  day  of  the  Jews. 
This  feast  of  first  fruits,  in  its  primitive  form,  belonged  to 
an  age  of  which  there  is  no  record — the  pagan  prelude 
to  what  we  know  of  Jewish  history.  To  the  agricultural 
people  of  that  remote  period  it  Avas  what  the  Eleusinia 
was  to  the  ancient  people  of  Attica.  It  was,  like  the  Pass- 
over, a  joyous  festival — one  of  thanksgiving,  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  harvest,  to  Him  who  "maketh  peace  in  thy 
borders,  who  fiUeth  thee  with  the  finest  of  the  wheat."  It 
had  been  fiom  the  beginning  the  day  of  the  assembling  of 
the  first-born. 

It  was,  indeed,  the  day  of  first  fruits — the  first  fruits  of 
the  Spirit.  These  followers  of  the  Lord,  numbering  about 
one  hundred  and  twenty,  waiting  in  Jerusalem,  as  they 
had  been  bidden,  brooding  in  their  hearts  over  all  they 
had  seen  and  heard,  were  now  spontaneously,  with  one 
accord,  gathered  together.  They  had  no  plan,  no  system 
of  belief  or  of  operation ;  no  outward  bond  drew  them 
together;  but  they  were  aflame  with  the  Spirit,  and  the 
flame  could  not  be  hidden — it  must  bear  witness.  Never 
before  nor  since  was  there  such  a  fusion  of  flaming  souls, 
sustained  and  exalted  by  the  inspiration  of  divine  love 
and  truth.  This  spectacle  is  the  clearest  glimpse  ever 
had  upon  earth  of  the  meaning  of  human  accord,  one 
with  the  divine  harmony.  These  are  the  children — the 
new  born  of  the  kingdom  —  in  an  important  sense  the  first 
born.    Is  it  wonderful  that  they  seem  to  hear  a  sound  from 


THE  NEIV  SOCIETY.  203 

heaven  as  of  the  rushing  of  a  mighty  wind,  filling  all  the 
place  ?  They  do  not  speak,  but  they  sing  psalms,  and 
prophesy.  And  vast  numbers  of  the  devout  of  every 
nation  then  in  Jerusalem  are  found  by  this  strong  current, 
caught  in  a  living  way,  drawn  into  this  whirlwind  of  flame 
— into  the  repose  of  this  raging  calm.  For  there  is  no 
confusion  in  the  strain  of  this  exaltation,  but  complete 
accord  —  the  self-restrained  harmony  of  the  kingdom. 
These  are  witnesses  to  the  love  of  the  Father  as  shown  in 
Christ ;  and  to  an  endless  life.  Their  uppermost  theme 
is  the  resurrection  of  their  Lord, 

Such  was  the  beginning  of  a  new  Society  —  in  the  very 
heart  of  Jewry,  which  had  made  a  Passover  that  it  knew 
not  of,  and  a  Pentecost  whose  joy  it  comprehended  not. 

X 

Here  was  a  revelation,  for  the  first  time,  of  the  possi- 
bilities of  Association  —  an  association  at  once  divine  and 
human.     The  New  Society  was  identified  with 

.  The 

Chnst,  taking  his  place  visibly  as  the  expression  community 
of  his  power   over  all  flesh,  the  leaven  of  the   ,     ^', 

^  _  _  Jerusalem. 

kingdom.  In  it  as  in  him  dwelt  the  Father 
(which  is  the  same  as  to  say  the  Eternal  Son  or  the  Holy 
Spirit) ;  it  was  to  continue  and  complete  his  revelation  — 
in  its  development  what  he  had  revealed  as  the  principle 
of  the  spiritual  life  was  to  be  fully  unfolded  and  realised ; 
in  it,  as  in  him,  the  divine  and  the  human  were  one  and 
indistinguishable ;  and  its  righteousness  was  his  righteous- 
ness— not  ethical  but  spiritual,  not  taking  account  of 
judgment,  or  of  an  outward  law,  but  wholly  a  growth  from 
grace.  Like  him,  it  had  the  heritage  of  a  perversely  dis- 
posed nature  and  must  be  sanctified  by  the  Father;  and, 
like  him,  having  been  sanctified,  it  was  sent  into  the  world 


204  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN    FELLOIVSHIP. 

—  into  a  system  expressing  through  inveterate  habit  this 
perverse  disposition ;  and  its  mission,  hke  his,  was  through 
love  to  reconcile  the  world  unto  God.  "  Be  ye  Christ 
unto  all  men"  —  this  was  its  commission. 

The  purpose  of  this  association  was  not  ecclesiastical ; 
it  contemplated  a  life,  not  a  ritual  —  a  continuous  life 
together,  like  that  of  a  family.  It  followed  the  Lord's 
example  in  its  attitude  toward  the  Jewish  religion.  There 
was  no  attempt  to  initiate  a  new  ceremonial.  Its  first 
assembling  was  outwardly  a  part  of  the  great  feast  then 
being  celebrated.  "  Continuing  daily  with  one  accord  in 
the  temple,"  these  Galileans  were  not  distinguished  from 
the  other  celebrants  of  the  feast  by  any  peculiar  obser- 
vances. It  was  not  that  they  were  clinging  to  the  old 
fabric — they  were  clinging  to  their  people,  regardless  of 
place  or  season,  to  draw  them  into  the  way  of  life.  They 
gave  no  thought  to  outward  form,  old  or  new.  It  was  a 
period  of  fusion,  not  of  crystalUsation. 

And  yet  this  new  Society  had  an  economy  of  outward 
life  wholly  new,  except  as  it  was  patterned  after  that 
which  had  been  practised  by  the  little  company  on  the 
shores  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee.  It  was  a  household  of  faith. 
"  And  all  that  believed  were  together  and  had  all  things 
in  common ;  and  sold  their  possessions  and  goods  and 
parted  them  to  all,  as  every  man  had  need."  There  were 
no  class  distinctions.  None  sought  mastery  over  his 
brethren,  but  rather  each  was  the  servant  of  all,  in  honor 
preferring  all  the  others. 

There  was  a  new  revelation  as  to  the  mighty  pos- 
sibilities of  association  itself,  in  which  the  power  of  all 
becomes  the  power  of  each,  both  to  receive  and  to 
communicate  the  divine  life. 


NATURAL  BASIS    OF  THE   BROTHERHOOD.     205 


XI 

There  is  in  such  an  association,  in  this  Brotherhood 
of  Man,  this  equal  love  of  all,  that  correspondence  with 
Nature  which  we  have  found  in  every  trait  of      corre- 
our  Lord's  life  and  of  the  kingdom  which  he  spondence 

UniOlded.  Fellowship 

That  men  should  unite  their  forces  in  the  ^°  Nature. 
reception  of  the  divine  bounty  of  Nature  is  on  their  part 
a  fitting  response  to  that  union  of  all  the  forces  and  ele- 
ments of  Nature  through  which  this  bounty  is  given.  It 
is  a  response  for  which  Nature,  indeed,  waits,  that  the 
fulness  of  her  bounty  may  be  manifest.  We  have  miscon- 
ceived Nature  as  we  have  God  Himself  We  have  called 
her  a  hard  mistress,  imputing  to  her  our  own  hardness. 
We  have  stood  shamelessly  in  her  presence  with  all  our 
strifes  and  jealousies  and  self-seekings,  until  the  earth 
seems  indeed  accursed  for  our  sake,  answering  only  to 
the  tiresome  drudgery  of  our  hands  and  the  sweat  of 
our  brows.  All  of  her  domain  that  has  come  within  our 
power  we  have  wrested  from  divine  uses  by  our  greed  and 
selfishness,  and  by  our  perversion  and  neglect  have  tainted 
her  fields  and  her  streams.  In  the  realm  of  her  own  ab- 
solute control  —  in  her  sunshine  and  her  rain — how  gen- 
erous she  is,  how  wholesome  even  in  her  violences ! 

As  distinctly  as  possible  she  saith  unto  us,  "  Ye  will 
not  come  unto  me  that  ye  may  have  life.  My  yoke  is  easy 
and  my  burden  is  light.  But  ye  must  be  born  again. 
Ye  must  come,  loving  one  another,  and  ye  must  come  all 
as  one.  I  cannot  answer  with  a  full  blessing  unto  one,  or 
unto  a  few;  but  when  ye  have  joined  hands,  in  singleness 
of  hearts,  ye  shall  know  the  glory  which  from  the  begin- 
ning I  have  waited  to  give  unto  you." 


2o6  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 

In  every  way  she  shows  us  not  only  the  beauty  but  the 
strength  of  harmony.  The  frail  bridge  that  bears  a  regi- 
ment of  straggling  soldiers  breaks  under  their  measured 
and  mated  steps.  The  tower,  still  as  death  under  jangling 
bells,  rocks  with  the  vibration  of  harmonious  chimes.  All 
the  forces  of  Nature  lend  themselves  unto  accords.  The 
comprehension  of  this  is  the  key  to  the  most  marvellous 
discoveries  of  the  future,  to  yet  undreamed-of  combina- 
tions and  reinforcements  of  energy,  aye,  even  to  commu- 
nication with  other  worlds. 

The  divine  life  in  spiritual  operation  responds  to  asso- 
ciation, dominating  its  harmonies,  and  in  the  complete 
accord  of  humanity  is  the  restoration  to  man  of  the  power 
and  wisdom  which  belong  to  the  sons  of  God. 


XII 

The  intense  fervor  of  this  first  Christian  Society,  which 

rendered  impossible  any  immediate  crystallisation  into  a 

ritual  of  its  sublime  faith,  also  prevented  its  sys- 

sSety  tematic  regulation  of  social  life.  Communism 
based  upon  ^yas  spontancous,  a  matter  of  course,  and  not 
eory.  ^^^  product  of  a  theory  or  the  expression  of 
justice.  It  was  a  fruit  of  the  life  which  they  had  received, 
a  life  so  exalted  that  material  possessions  seemed  of  litde 
worth,  of  no  worth,  indeed,  save  for  their  immediately 
necessary  and  vital  use.  The  distribution  was  not  equal, 
but  according  to  need.  Even  a  supervision  of  this  sim- 
ple divestiture  and  distribution  was  an  afterthought,  arising 
from  necessity.  These  Christians  were  not  contemplating 
a  system,  an  economy,  or  an  environment — they  were 
expressing  love. 

There  is  an  illustration  of  the  awfulness  of  this  love  in 
the  episode  of  Ananias  and  Sapphira,  who  kept  back  part 


THE  AWFUL    PRESENCE.  207 

of  the  price  for  whicli  they  had  sold  their  goods,  seahng 
their  deception  with  a  he.  Tlieir  death  is  not  the  result  of 
a  miracle  performed  by  Peter,  though  we  shudder  as  we 
read  the  words  addressed  by  him  to  Sapphira — so  differ- 
ent does  their  spirit  seem  from  that  of  our  Lord,  ^vho 
condemned  not  the  most  degraded  sinner,  and  whose 
power  was  never  exercised  for  the  destruction  but  only 
for  the  restoration  of  life.  But  it  is  not  Peter  or  Ananias 
or  Sapphira  that  is  dominant  here,  but  the  Presence  in 
which  they  are  all  standing — the  Spirit  of  Love.  In  the 
presence  of  Justice  the  situation  would  have  no  peculiar 
significance.  The  moral  sense  would  be  satisfied  by  a 
simple  decree  of  expulsion  from  the  society.  But,  before 
this  Love  which  giveth  all  and  asketh  nought  but  love  — 
what  answer?  One  might  resist  the  Spirit  in  perverse 
blindness  and  still  live,  yea,  and  still  be  followed  by  him ; 
but  having  received  him,  and,  looking  in  his  face,  to  do 
him  violence  by  this  mockery  of  self-hiding  and  self- 
seeking,  or  even  by  so  much  as  a  selfish  plea  for  justice, 
would  bring  on  a  mortal  shock.  Where  Justice  itself  is 
slain,  can  fraud  and  falsehood  live  ? 

It  was  some  such  terrible  reaction  that  drove  Judas — 
who  had  dwelt  in  the  presence  of  the  gentle  Jesus  even 
unto  the  last  supper — to  that  fatal  headlong  plunge  and 
bursting  asunder  in  Aceldama. 

XIII 

Is  IT  an  over-strain  —  this  exaltation,  this  mighty  illumi- 
nation, in  which  all  outward  systems  vanish,  and  all  ma- 
terial things  are  transparent  veils  scarcely  hiding  the  spirit ; 
in  which  physical  life  itself  is  so  readily  surrendered,  as  if 
it  were  a  mere  incident  to  the  endless  life ;  and  in  which 
the  daily  breaking  of  bread  is  regarded  as  a  sacrament  ? 


2o8  THE    DiyiNE    HUMAN    FELLOIVSHIP. 

The  disciples  follow  their  Lord  into  the  very  heavens. 

We  may  call  it  ecstasy  —  but  it  is  not,  therefore,  unreal ; 

it  is  not  an  hallucination.     A  stream  hath  not 

,,  ^    ,     only   its    onward  even   flow,  but  also  invisible 

Natural  ■'  _  .        ' 

and  currents  of  exhalation,  which  are  equally  natural. 
^M'taTy""^  Also  the  descent  of  the  mist  and  its  reappear- 
ance in  seemingly  grosser  forms  is  natural.  In 
Nature  there  is  no  morbid  strain.  Her  vitality  is  manifest 
in  the  quickness  of  all  her  transformations  from  heavy 
to  light  or  from  light  to  heavy,  from  death  unto  life  or 
from  life  unto  death.  There  is  nothing  unwholesome  in 
her,  even  in  the  bewildering  variety  of  her  types;  she 
teaches  us  the  catholic  sympathy  which  includes  all  these, 
from  the  leviathan  to  the  gold-fish,  from  the  toad  to  the 
butterfly,  from  the  ape  to  the  man. 

Our  Lord  was  exalted  through  a  sanctification  and  a 
heavenly  glory  such  as  was  never  shown  in  any  other  in- 
dividual man ;  but  his  contact  with  the  earth  was  catholic 
and  wholesome ;  he  came  eating  and  drinking,  horrifying 
the  Jews  by  unwashen  hands,  and  having  associations  that 
even  to  Pagan  refinement  would  have  seemed  compromis- 
ing.    It  was  the  divine  habit  in  his  Ufe. 

In  so  far  as  the  Spirit  which  was  in  him  has  free  course 
in  his  disciples,  this  same  chvine  habit  will  appear  in 
them — this  readiness  of  reaction,  of  earthly  reprisal,  this 
catholicity  of  sympathy.  It  is  shown  in  the  bond  of  love 
uniting  them  all  as  one  household ;  in  the  fact  that  all  the 
kindreds  of  the  earth  are  included  in  the  blessing ;  in  the 
absence  of  that  spiritual  pride  which  would  lead  them  to 
set  themselves  apart  from  the  rest  of  the  people;  and  in 
the  wholesome  enjoyment  of  social  life.  And  they,  "break- 
ing bread  from  house  to  house,  did  eat  their  meat  with 
gladness  and  singleness  of  heart,  praising  God,  and  having 
favour  with  all  the  people." 


THE   PARADISE    OF    THE    REGENERATE.       209 

There  is  every  sign  of  the  highest  spiritual  operation  in 
this  community,  and  the  most  manifest  of  all  is  the  absence 
of  asceticism.  There  is  nothing  to  suggest  a  comparison 
with  the  monastic  communities  of  a  later  period — no  seclu- 
sion, no  pietism.  There  is  intense  illumination ;  and,  while 
it  is  not  hidden,  but  is,  on  the  contrary,  a  continual  wit- 
nessing, there  is  no  systematic  proselytism.  The  predi- 
cation is  irrepressible ;  it  is  the  fresh,  spontaneous  gushing 
of  the  fountain  of  life. 

There  is  but  the  most  meagre  record  of  this  first  move- 
ment of  the  Christian  spirit.  Such  movements  are  never 
recorded — it  is  their  happiness,  as  it  is  our  loss.  The  Acts 
of  the  Apostles  was  written  in  another  generation  and  in 
another  atmosphere.  In  writing  the  Gospel  which  bears 
his  name,  Luke  had  abundant  material  in  the  living  memo- 
ries of  our  Lord's  doings  and  sayings,  and  in  partial  records 
already  made ;  but  in  writing  the  Acts,  he  had  no  such 
data,  from  which  he  might  give  us  a  view  of  the  most 
precious  portion  of  the  simplest  and  most  glorious  mani- 
festation of  the  Christian  impulse  that  the  world  has  ever 
known.  The  communications  between  these  brethren, 
their  prophesyings,  the  beauty  and  tenderness  and  stead- 
fast charm  of  their  accord — of  these  there  is  no  record. 
We  have  but  a  glimpse  of  the  wonderful  scenes  that  tran- 
spired in  Solomon's  porch.  It  has  but  a  brief  period — 
this  Paradise  of  the  Regenerate  ;  and  we  know  as  little  of 
it  as  we  know  of  Eden.  It  is  beyond  the  power  of  the 
imagination  to  conceive — this  dream  of  the  heart's  desire; 
we  shall  never  know,  until  again  the  dream  come  true ! 


THE   DiyiNE    HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 


XIV 

This  first  Christian  Society  was  not  a  perfect  illustra- 
tion of  the  possibilities  of  association;  but,  such  was  its 
simplicity  of  faith  and  so  close  its  following  of 

Frailty     Christ,  and  therefore  of  Nature,  that  all  subse- 

this  Social   ^l^^^^t   Christian   organisations   and  movements 

Manifesta-  sccm  like  lapses  from  a  first  estate — the  fall  of 

the  Regenerate.     There  is  the  burst  of  dawn, 

a  mighty  illumination,  and  then  from  all  sides  a  dense 

mist  flows  in  as  from  some  all-surrounding  and  illimitable 

sea  of  darkness.    Not  fully  comprehending  the  divine  plan, 

we  are  apt  to  forget  that  this  thick  vapor  is  itself  due  to 

the  operation  of  the  very  sun  which  is  hidden  thereby,  and 

which  must  finally  dispel  it. 

It  must  be  that  lapses  are  a  feature  of  God's  own  plan. 
We  find  no  place  for  judgment,  and  even  He  judgeth  not 
—  He  least  of  all.  To  Him  the  ascent  appeareth  where 
we  see  only  the  fall. 

We  see  this  glory  of  the  Christ  become  flesh,  followed 
by  the  Pentecostal  glory  of  the  Christ  becoming  all  flesh. 
We  do  not  see  why  this  manifestation  should  not  steadily 
continue  until  all  mankind  is  redeemed.  Is  there  any  lack 
of  power  in  this  divine  life  that  it  should  slacken,  or  its 
light  be  dimmed  ?  Faith  is  so  simple  —  only  the  willing- 
ness to  receive  the  life ;  and  the  fruits  of  this  life  are  so 
desirable  —  love,  peace  and  joy;  why,  then,  should  not  all 
discords  be  immediately  resolved  ? 

But  it  would  be  as  pertinent  to  inquire  why  there  should 
ever  have  been  a  discord  to  be  resolved.  Where  shall 
we  find  the  point  from  which  we  may  judge  the  actions 
or  reactions  of  the  divine  alchemy?  It  is  life  which  we 
confront,  not  a  machine.     And  the  glory  of  the  life  is 


ARBITRARY  JUDGMENT.  211 

in  some  mysterious  way  associated  with  its  frailty.  There 
would  seem  to  be  a  divine  abhorrence  of  what  we  call 
perfection,  as  of  what  we  call  righteousness — an  aversion 
from  equilibrium,  uniformity,  faultless  symmetry.  To  be 
perfect  as  our  heavenly  Father  is  perfect  is  to  be  faultful 
according  to  any  human  standard  of  perfection.  What 
we  would  reasonably  and  ethically  consider  a  perfect 
world  would  be  the  sport  of  Nature  and  a  subject  of 
divine  raillery. 

With  what,  indeed,  shall  the  human  reason  be  satisfied  ? 
"And  the  Lord  said,  Whereunto  shall  I  liken  the  men  of 
this  generation  ?  .  .  .  They  are  like  unto  children  sitting 
in  the  market-place,  and  calling  one  to  another,  and  saying, 
We  have  piped  unto  you,  and  ye  have  not  danced  ;  we 
have  mourned  unto  you,  and  ye  have  not  wept.  For  John 
the  Baptist  came  neither  eating  bread  nor  drinking  wine ; 
and  ye  say,  He  hath  a  devil.  The  Son  of  man  is  come 
eating  and  drinking  ;  and  ye  say,  Behold  a  gluttonous  man, 
and  a  wine-bibber,  a  friend  of  publicans  and  sinners ! 
But  wisdom  is  justified  of  all  her  children." 

What  contrasts,  what  apparent  incongruities,  are  in- 
cluded within  the  scope  not  simply  of  the  sufferance  but 
even  of  the  vital  operation  of  the  divine  love  and  wisdom ! 
As  in  an  unvital  faith  we  misconceive  God,  so,  in  the  same 
way,  do  we  misconceive  His  kingdom,  and  arbitrarily 
draw  the  lines  which  separate  it  from  the  world.  These 
lines  are  not  only  invisible  to  us,  but  in  the  divine  view 
they  vanish  entirely,  since  He  seeth  the  end  from  the 
beginning,  and  knoweth  no  evil.  But,  while  only  the 
Father  knoweth  the  end,  yet  the  Son,  in  revealing  unto  us 
the  Father,  hath  unfolded  the  kingdom,  and  hath  shown 
us  whereby  we  may  distinguish  it  from  the  world,  and  from 
his  unfolding  we  see  that  this  distinction  is  not  arbitrary — 
that  the  children  of  the  kingdom  are  those  whose  wills  are 


2  12  THE   DIVINE    HUMAN   FELLOWSHIP. 

in  accord  with  the  heavenly  Father's;  that  we  cannot 
judge  by  outward  professions,  since  so  many  call  him 
Lord  whom  He  hath  never  known,  nor  by  present  con- 
sent, since  some,  saying  they  come,  come  not,  while 
others  who  refuse  yet  finally  come  —  so  that  we  can  find 
no  fold  but  that  there  are  sheep  of  His  outside  thereof. 

XV 

The  life  of  the  Christian  cannot  be  distinguished  from 

that  of  other  men  by  its  opposition  to  divine  intents  clearly 

Natural     indicated  in  Nature.     The  most  erroneous  con- 

intimations  ccptions    of   the    divine    life    arise    from    such 
of  ^       .  . 

Human  So-    OppOSltlOn. 

ciety.  Q^J.  Lord  has  brought  us  so  close  to  Nature, 

as  a  divine  standard  of  truth,  that  her  light  is  constantly 
blended  with  his  revelation.  In  the  frankness  of  this 
light,  reinforced  by  his  word  and  by  the  further  illumina- 
tion of  the  Spirit,  our  misconceptions  vanish. 

We  see  that  primal  impulses  and  passions  which  we  have 
called  by  hard  names  fulfil  a  divine  intent,  even  beyond 
the  scope  of  their  immediate  aims,  and  that,  in  the  line  of 
this  intent,  they  are  intensified  and  accompanied  by  de- 
lights. Nature  not  only  invites  to  eager  possession,  but 
indicates  by  example,  in  her  own  wild  life,  even  violence, 
which  has  in  it  no  hatred.  This  "  ravening  with  tooth 
and  claw  "  is  altogether  wholesome.  The  wolf  that  rends 
the  sheep  for  food  has  no  more  ill-will  in  his  quick  vio- 
lence than  has  the  shepherd,  who  yearly  fleeces  and  finally 
slays  them  with  the  same  intent. 

But  we  see  also,  in  this  frank  light,  that,  while  God  in 
Nature  eschews  morbid  indifference  to  His  bounty,  much 
more  He  abhors  the  morbid  greed  of  them  that  love 
things  for  themselves,  that  accumulate   treasure   beyond 


NATURAL    STANDARDS    OF   LIFE.  213 

the  quick  and  wholesome  use  thereof,  and  that,  to  satisfy 
this  greed,  indulge  in  wanton  violence  in  their  pursuit, 
and  by  their  rapacity  take  advantage  of  their  brethren. 
In  the  light  of  Nature  as  of  the  Gospel,  a  man's  life  is  not 
in  the  abundance  of  the  things  he  possesseth ;  life  is  more 
than  meat  and  the  body  than  raiment. 

Moreover  we  see  that  Nature  indicates  no  arbitrary 
limit  to  the  simplicity  of  life.  It  is  not  a  question  as 
between  crudeness  and  refinement,  between  sitting  upon 
the  ground  and  upon  benches,  between  a  habit  of  sheep- 
skin and  one  of  fine  linen,  between  a  hut  and  a  mansion, 
between  rude  and  improved  mechanical  contrivances. 
The  bareness  of  life  is  not  essential  to  its  simplicity. 
Nature  freely  gives  us  all  things — the  fruits  of  the  earth, 
the  fleeces  and  flesh  of  her  flocks,  her  gold  and  silver  and 
precious  stones,  and  all  her  forces,  for  the  service  of  life; 
and  she  gives  them  to  all  alike,  even  as  she  gives  her  rain 
and  her  sunshine;  and  there  is  abundance  for  all,  at  so 
slight  an  expense  of  effort  on  our  part  as  not  to  interfere 
with  our  higher  life,  if  we  do  our  part,  as  Nature  does 
hers,  in  the  complete  harmony  of  our  united  strength. 

In  the  interdependencies  and  interchanges  of  all  her 
realm,  Nature  has  even  indicated  the  activities  of  human 
commerce,  offering,  indeed,  a  similitude  of  that  complex 
system  which  we  call  civilisation.  She  has  her  progress 
also  from  one  stage  of  development  to  another,  refining 
upon  her  own  types. 

But,  in  all  these  indications  and  anticipations  of  what  we 
call  the  worldly  scheme,  (often  arbitrarily  distinguishing 
it  from  the  divine,)  Nature  negatively  teaches — by  what 
is  excluded  from  her  realm — what  our  Lord  has  positively 
taught,  namely:  the  perversion  and  abuse  by  which  this 
worldly  scheme  antagonises  that  of  the  kingdom.  She 
has  violence  but  not  hatred  ;  prodigality  of  hfe,  so  that  it 
17 


2  14  THE    DiyiNE    HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 

seems  waste,  but  not  wanton  excess  or  abusive  license ; 
infinite  complexity  and  diversity,  but  not  discord.  Her 
seeming  inertia  is  the  veiling  of  her  might ;  her  indolences 
cover  the  swarming  of  restless  activities,  even  as  her  calms 
hide  whirlwinds,  and  the  steadfastness  of  her  stars  is  the 
resultant  of  her  immeasurable  velocities.  In  all  things,  in 
her  tensions  and  her  relaxations,  in  her  syntheses  and  her 
dissolutions,  she  is  quick  with  the  quickness  of  the  Spirit ; 
and  that  which  she  gives  us  and  reveals  unto  us  is  that 
which  our  Lord  brought  us,  and  which  the  divine  spirit 
quickens  in  us  and  ever  shows  us — it  is  Life.  It  is  the 
morbid,  the  death  which  stays  and  which  imprisons  the 
soul,  that  is  excluded  from  every  divine  realm. 

How  clearly,  then.  Nature  reflects  our  Lord's  teaching, 
that  our  choice  of  the  better  part  is  not  in  that  we  possess 
few  things,  but  in  that  we  have  not  that  care  for  many 
things  which  corrupts  the  heart.  All  the  quick  delights  of 
a  natural  life  are  wholesome ;  but  self-indulgence,  the  re- 
laxations of  luxurious  ease,  idle  business  and  busy  idleness, 
are  unnatural  and  morbid.  What  does  not  immediately 
serve  Life  tends  to  degeneration  and  spiritual  death. 

The  natural  law  is  the  spiritual  law,  not  only  for  the 
individual  but  for  society.  Nothing  is  more  surely  indi- 
cated as  a  divine  intent  than  that  we  should  associatively 
possess  the  earth  —  fully,  eagerly  and  joyously.  Such  a 
possession  is  possible  only  to  all  humanity,  united  in  one 
brotherhood,  not  through  the  organisation  of  justice,  but 
through  the  spontaneous  operation  of  the  spirit  of  love  — 
that  is,  through  regeneration. 


THE    FIRST   CHRISTIAN   GENERATION.         215 


XVI 

In  the  first  Christian  Society  there  was  the  operation 
of  this  spirit,  and,  as  the  result  of  the  impulse,  we  behold 
the  highest  wave  ever  seen  not  only  of  spiritual 
but  of  social  life.     So  unique,  so  without  prece-       and 
dent  and  without  any  adequate  sequent,  was  the    oft^e  first 
movement   of  faith,   inspiration,   prophecy  and    Christian 
fraternal  love  in  this  nascent   Christianity  that 
it  has  been  tacitly  or  expressly  assumed,  in  all  theological 
interpretation,  that  the  first   Christian  generation  was  a 
supernatural  age. 

But  as  there  can  be  no  partial  salvation,  so  no  social 
movement  which  is  not  universal,  including  all  humanity, 
can  perfectly  exemplify  the  Christian  principle  of  associa- 
tion. Moreover  there  were  other  causes  of  imperfection 
in  the  original  Christian  community  at  Jerusalem,  the 
chief  of  which  were  the  hostility  of  the  Jews  and  the 
conservative  instinct  binding  these  earliest  Christians  to 
Judaism.  In  the  ages  that  follow  we  shall  note  lapse 
after  lapse  from  this  exaltation  of  the  first  Christian  gen- 
eration, through  the  development  of  official  ecclesiasticism, 
from  the  establishment  of  episcopacy  to  the  official  recog- 
nition of  the  Church  under  Constantine — lapses,  as  they 
seem  to  us,  but  nevertheless  contemplated  in  the  divine 
plan ;  for  God  is  not  especially  regarding  this  community 
at  Jerusalem,  nor  its  successors  at  Antioch  or  Ephesus  or 
Rome,  but  hath  in  view  the  regeneration  of  humanity. 


2i6  THE   DIVINE    HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 


XVII 

It  is  only  when  we  consider  large  movements,  entire 

cycles,  that  we  see  the  value  of  instability.     In  the  history 

of  the  Jewish  people  we  note  the  divine  provi- 

SpTrituai    dence  by  which,  through  prophetic  revulsions. 

Value  of     it  vvas  saved   from  an    imperial    establishment. 

nsta  iity.  ^^^  history  conclusivcly  demonstrates  the  oppo- 
site of  De  Tocqueville's  assertion,  that  the  nation  which 
does  not  believe  must  serve,  showing  rather  that  faith  it- 
self may  be  preserved  through  submission  to  servitude.  It 
was  the  least  spiritual  of  all  ancient  peoples  that  acquired 
the  mastery  of  the  world.  Nearly  every  great  religion  has 
flourished  in  its  transplantations  rather  than  in  its  original 
birthplace.  Every  historic  movement  is  like  a  harmonic 
series  having  its  dominant,  through  which  is  begun  a  new- 
series.  Through  flight,  or  exile,  or  wandering  the  divine 
purposes  are  accomplished. 

On  the  other  hand  it  is  the  conservative  instinct  which 
appears  to  be  the  strongest  characteristic  of  any  develop- 
ment, left  to  itself.  The  climbing  plant,  with  a  force  equal 
to  that  of  its  ascent,  thrusts  its  roots  into  the  earth ;  and 
these  roots  remain,  though  the  branches  be  despoiled  of 
leaves  and  flowers  and  fruit;  nay,  they  keep  in  storage 
the  very  juices  of  vitaHty  under  the  protecting  snows  of 
winter.  Thus  there  is  not  only  the  continuity  of  life,  but 
there  are  stations,  abiding-places,  tents,  tabernacles,  and 
temples.  Our  loves  are  not  fleeting  and  fickle,  but  firm 
and  tender  holdings,  such  as  make  homes,  hamlets,  frater- 
nides.  Love  hath  this  homing-instinct  so  fixed  that  it 
must  needs  have  its  dominant,  or  variant  centre,  in  mar- 
riage, so  that  there  may  be  at  least  new  homes.  Out  of 
this  instinct  grow  fond  memories,  and,  from  the  breaking 


CONSERVATISM   OF   FAITH.  217 

of  its  tendrils,  arise  regrets ;  so  that  a  prominent  concern 
in  the  thought  of  a  future  Ufe  relates  to  the  recognition  of 
those  loved  and  cherished  in  the  present. 

Thus  in  the  spiritual  life  there  is  not  only  the  apostolic 
mission,  but  the  standing  and  waiting,  and  deep  thrusting 
of  roots  into  the  soil  —  there  are  the  open,  waiting  deeps 
of  the  soul  ready  to  receive  the  life  which  fills  as  well  as 
quickens ;  so  that  contemplation  seems  even  larger  than 
action. 

Our  Lord,  with  that  fidelity  to  Nature  which  was  the 
divine  habit  in  him,  shows  in  his  life  and  in  his  word  both 
tendencies.  There  must  be  the  readiness  to  leave  all,  to 
loosen  all  earthly  ties  and  holdings,  to  lose  hfe  itself  in 
order  to  do  the  Father's  will.  God  is  a  spirit,  and  the 
hour  Cometh  when  He  is  not  to  be  worshipped  "  either  on 
this  mountain  or  yet  at  Jerusalem."  He  looks  upon  the 
temple  to  predict  its  destruction,  upon  Jerusalem  to  fore- 
cast its  desolation.  Yet  his  footsteps  linger  in  familiar 
haunts;  the  range  of  his  wanderings  is  not  wide;  he  seeks 
not  patients  for  his  healing,  but  they  come  unto  him ;  we 
do  not  read  of  his  going  unto  Nicodemus  or  others  but  of 
their  coming  to  him  ;  so  far  is  he  from  proselyting  that  he 
restrains  his  disciples  from  prematurely  telling  any  that  he 
is  the  Christ ;  he  never  in  any  way  indicates  a  departure 
from  the  Jewish  faith,  and  his  last  command  to  his  dis- 
ciples is  to  await  the  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  at  Jerusalem. 
After  his  ascension,  Jerusalem  becomes  the  centre  of  the 
new  faith,  so  blended  with  the  old  that  the  Pharisees,  so 
hostile  to  him,  seeing  the  devotion  of  his  disciples,  are 
for  the  most  part  reconciled  unto  them, —  many  of  them, 
because  of  the  prominence  given  to  his  resurrection, 
becoming  his  followers. 

But  for  the  hostility  of  the  Sadducees,  on  account  of  this 
same  doctrine  of  the  Resurrection,  the  community  under 


2i8  THE   DiyiNE    HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 

the  leadership  of  Peter  and  James  and  John  would  have 
continued  at  Jerusalem,  strengthening  their  affiliations 
with  Judaism.  In  doing  this,  and  in  waiting  for  the  world 
to  come  to  the  Holy  City,  they  would  have  seemed  to  be 
imitating  the  example  of  their  Lord. 

Suddenly  what  the  Lord  had  said  —  that  he  came  not 
to  bring  peace  but  a  sword  —  is  brought  to  their  remem- 
brance. Stephen,  one  of  their  elders  and  strongest  proph- 
ets, is  brought  before  the  council.  "And  all  that  sat  in 
the  council,  looking  steadfastly  on  him,  saw  his  face  as  it 
had  been  the  face  of  an  angel."  The  writer  of  the  Ac/s 
says  that  a  false  charge  was  brought  against  him ;  namely, 
that  he  had  said  that  "  Jesus  of  Nazareth  shall  destroy  this 
place,  and  shall  change  the  customs  which  Moses  deliv- 
ered us."  Plainly,  the  enemies  of  the  disciples  are  forcing 
upon  them  the  issue  which  they  will  not  themselves  make, 
though  it  is  the  very  vitality  of  their  Gospel.  Even  at 
this  solemn  hour  Stephen  himself  accepts  not  this  issue, 
but  charges  upon  the  Jews  the  resistance  to  the  law  in 
that  they  have  been  the  betrayers  and  murderers  of  his 
Lord.  Then  they  cast  him  out  of  the  city  and  stone  him 
to  death. 

"And  the  witnesses  laid  down  their  clothes  at  a  young 
man's  feet,  whose  name  was  Saul.  And  they  stoned 
Stephen,  calling  upon  God  and  saying.  Lord  Jesus,  re- 
ceive my  spirit.  And  he  kneeled  down,  and  cried  with  a 
loud  voice.  Lord,  lay  not  this  sin  to  their  charge.  And, 
when  he  had  said  this,  he  fell  asleep." 

How  wonderful  the  situation  in  all  its  elements !  Here 
is  the  first  Christian  martyr;  not  one  of  the  original  dis- 
ciples, but  a  proselyte,  who  has  become  the  most  earnest 
of  the  seven  deacons  chosen  by  the  aposdes ;  the  boldest 
in  his  predication,  so  that  he  has  aroused  the  hostility  of 
even   the   Pharisees  by  touching  their  traditions,  as  the 


STEPHEN  AND    PAUL.  219 

Lord  had  done ;  brought  before  the  council  to  answer  to 
the  same  charge  that  had  been  brought  against  the  Lord, 
and  now  that  Lord's  first  witness  unto  death.  Yet  he  dies 
holding  firmly  to  Judaism,  citing  the  law  and  the  prophets 
in  his  defence,  and  knowing  nothing  in  the  law  which 
should  separate  him  from  the  Christ,  who  in  his  thought 
is  the  fulfilment  thereof — so  that,  while  appealing  to 
Moses,  yet  looking  upward  he  seeth  "  the  heavens  opened 
and  the  Son  of  man  standing  at  the  right  hand  of  God." 

And  yonder  stands  Paul,  consenting  unto  this  death,  he 
who  is  to  be  the  Apostle  unto  tlie  Gentiles  and  the  leader 
of  the  reaction  against  Judaism. 

Of  these  two  men,  neither  of  whom  has  seen  the  Christ, 
save  in  the  spirit,  the  one  is  through  his  death  in  an  im- 
portant sense  the  founder  of  the  Christian  church,  and  the 
other  through  his  word  the  founder  of  Christian  theology. 

"  I  am  not  come  to  bring  peace  but  a  sword."  As  the 
Lord  was  personally  delivered  over  to  the  high  priests  and 
elders,  that  he  might  be  glorified,  so  in  the  society  which 
is  the  embodiment  of  his  Spirit  must  he  be  forever  deUv- 
ered  up.  Gamaliel,  who  would  protect  this  society  at 
Jerusalem,  is  putting  it  under  bonds,  while  his  young  disci- 
ple Paul,  to  whom,  it  is  given  over  for  zealous  persecution, 
is  to  develop  its  freedom. 

Comfortably  estabhshed  at  Jerusalem,  Peter  and  James 
and  John  will  continue  to  look  upon  the  Christ  as  only 
the  culminating  glory  of  Judaism,  as  only  the  Son  of  Man 
prophesied  by  Daniel,  and  upon  his  resurrection  as  of  that 
sort  to  which  the  Pharisees  have  been  looking  for  so 
long ;  and  the  Holy  City  will  be  regarded  as  the  center 
of  a  kingdom  soon  to  be  established  on  the  earth  which 
shall  include  all  peoples — which  shall  also  include  all 
times,  since  there  is  to  be  a  general  resurrection,  of  which 
Christ  is  only  the  first  fruits. 


220  THE    DIl/INE    HUM/^N   FELLOIVSHIP. 

With  what  difficulty,  and  after  what  commotions  and 
convulsions,  is  this  conception  eradicated,  if  indeed  it  can 
be  said  to  have  ever  been  eradicated  from  the  minds  of 
these  disciples.  Certainly  in  the  Apocalypse,  written  nearly 
a  generation  later  by  John,  the  last  surviving  disciple,  this 
idea  is  still  dominant. 

The  persecution  which  began  with  the  slaughter  of 
Stephen  compelled  a  scattering  abroad,  quickening  among 
the  disciples  a  missionary  spirit,  so  that  the  Gospel  was 
preached  in  Samaria,  Phoenicia,  Cyprus  and  Antioch, 
though  unto  none  but  the  Jews. 

But  it  is  Paul  himself,  the  leader  of  this  persecution, 
Avho  is  to  be  the  great  Christian  missionary  of  this  gen- 
eration. 

XVIII 

The  prejudices  of  men  are   more  precious  unto  God 

than  are  their  tolerances  and  indifferences.     They  may  be 

the  result  of  ignorance,  but  they  are  the  signs  of 

Attitude     vitality.     How  shall  the  meek  inherit  the  earth, 

toward     gg^yg  g^g  j-]^g  world  antagonising  them  shall  be 

Jerusalem.  ° 

brought  into  the  way  of  life  ?  To  resist  the 
Spirit  with  zeal  is  to  come  within  its  quickening  influence. 
So  at  least  it  was  with  Paul. 

His  career  was  one  of  the  divine  surprises.  As  an 
Apostle  not  of  their  choosing,  he  was  as  much  an  occa- 
sion of  astonishment  and  consternation  to  the  cHsciples  at 
Jerusalem  as  he  had  been  when  as  a  persecutor  he  "  made 
havock  of  the  church."  He  was  the  Protestant  of  the 
first  Christian  generation  and  had  the  faults  as  well  as 
the  virtues  of  Protestantism.  His  apostolate  was  not 
only  a  development  of  Christianity  but  in  some  sort  its 
perversion,  or,  rather,  the  occasion  of  its  perversion  in 


PAUL    AND    THE    DISCIPLES.  221 

others,  who,  as  St.  Peter  saith,  wrest  to  their  own  destruc- 
tion some  things  in  his  epistles  which  are  hard  to  be 
understood. 

It  may  have  been  when  he  looked  upon  the  radiant 
face  of  the  dying  Stephen  that  Paul  felt  within  him  the 
first  quickening  of  the  Spirit.  It  was  a  face  reflecting  the 
passion  of  the  dying  Lord,  and  Stephen's  last  words  were 
an  echo  of  the  Lord's  prayer  to  the  Father  for  the  for- 
giveness of  his  murderers.  As  a  Pharisee,  moreover, 
Paul  may  have  been  impressed  by  the  importance  which 
the  disciples  attached  to  the  LoM's  resurrection,  which 
became  afterward  to  him  the  very  comer-stone  of  the 
foundation  of  the  Chinstian  faith.  Certainly,  on  his  way 
to  Damascus,  to  continue  his  persecution,  he  is  suddenly 
arrested  by  the  vision  and  the  voice  that  ever  afterward 
dominate  his  life.  He  had  not,  like  the  disciples,  that 
familiar  association  with  the  Lord  which  was  ever  like  a 
divine  spell  upon  them,  holding  them  as  within  a  charmed 
circle  of  glorious  memories,  so  that  even  in  their  utmost 
exaltation  there  is  a  sweet  restraint  upon  their  tarrying 
footsteps,  their  halting  mood,  their  waiting  thought.  His 
way  cannot  be  quite  their  way,  though  he  is  led  by  the 
same  Spirit.  His  is  a  purely  inward  vision  of  the  Christ, 
prompting  to  quick  action,  to  sudden  departures.  Hence- 
forth to  him  the  Mosaic  law,  the  Jewish  ordinances  and 
traditions,  savor  only  of  the  death  he  leaves  behind  him. 
The  letter  killeth;  the  Spirit  giveth  life.  His  Gospel  is 
the  Gospel  of  the  liberty  of  the  sons  of  God. 

He  seeks  no  confirmation  of  his  mission  from  the  twelve. 
According  to  his  own  account,  he  avoids  Jerusalem,  and 
will  not  build  upon  any  other  man's  foundation.  His 
apostolate  is  the  Gentile  world,  which  he  traverses  with 
bewildering  rapidity,  laboring  abundantly  and  suffering 
abundantly.     Yet,  by  his  own  profession,  he  is  a  Hebrew 


222  THE   DiyiNE    HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 

of  the  Hebrews,  and  his  preaching  is  first  to  the  Jew  and 
then  to  the  Gentile.  In  every  large  city  in  the  Roman 
world  there  is  a  Jewish  colony,  and  wherever  he  journeys 
his  first  visit  is  to  a  Jewish  synagogue.  If  the  Jews  turn 
against  him,  still  the  Gentiles  will  receive  him  ;  and  so 
the  Gospel  is  preached  throughout  the  whole  circuit  of 
the  Mediterranean. 

It  is  the  Gospel  of  a  new  religion.  Shortly  after  Paul's 
first  appearance  at  Antioch,  the  followers  of  the  Lord  first 
begin  to  be  called  Christians.  Circumcision  is  abandoned. 
The  Passover  is  no  longer  a  Jewish  feast.  Christ  is  Paul's 
Passover.  Faith  has  a  new  meaning,  wholly  distinct  from 
its  former  association  with  Judaism. 

Paul's  epistles  to  the  churches  of  his  foundation  not  only 
show  the  nature  and  extent  of  his  apostolic  work  and  the 
difficulties  which  he  experienced  from  Judaising  Christians, 
but  these  first  writings  of  the  New  Testament  contain  the 
complete  armory  of  Protestant  theology;  indeed,  they 
might  be  said  to  be  addressed  to  Protestant  churches  — 
the  protest  not  being  against  the  Gospel  as  preached  by 
the  disciples  at  Jerusalem,  but  against  the  authority  of 
Mosaic  tradition  as  appUcable  to  Christian  beUevers,  and 
of  official  ecclesiasticism  as  determining  the  limitations  of 
Christian  truth. 

As  to  ecclesiastical  authority,  there  is  scarcely  enough 
thereof  to  elicit  a  protest  —  only  a  tendency  shown  in  the 
disposition  of  James  to  prescribe,  through  an  official  letter, 
regulations  for  the  Gentile  churches.  Considered  as  an 
organisation,  the  Christian  church  is  still  in  its  infancy. 
There  is  as  yet  no  episcopate  in  the  modern  sense  of  the 
term.  There  are  no  church  edifices,  outside  of  the  syna- 
gogues ;  and,  when  meetings  cannot  be  held  in  these,  they 
are  held  in  the  houses  of  individuals.  The  simple  or- 
ganisation of  the  Jewish  synagogue  is  the  pattern  of  that 


CHRIST  IN   PAUL.  223 

adopted  in  the  churches.  The  council  at  Jerusalem  to 
consider  the  question  of  circumcision  is  an  informal  con- 
vention, whose  object  is  the  promotion  of  concord  among 
those  who  have  one  Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism. 

XIX 

In  doctrine  Paul  takes  a  wide  and  abrupt  departure 
from  the  position  held  by  the  disciples.  It  is  a  dejDarture 
in  that  it  is  a  doctrine.  In  substance  the  main 
features  of  his  faith  are  but  a  development  of  our  j^Q^j^j^^g 
Lord's  own  utterances — a  development  through 
the  quickening  and  leading  of  the  Spirit.  He  preaches 
the  Christ  as  the  Christ  is  revealed  to  him,  and  it  is  the 
same  Christ  which  was  visibly  manifest  to  the  disciples  in 
Galilee ;  but  he  has  a  vision  of  him  not  affected  by  those 
personal  associations  which  are  so  precious  to  them ;  it  is 
a  vision  from  which  the  earthly  lineaments  are  eliminated. 
We  have  seen  that  our  Lord  not  only  taught  his  disciples 
the  spiritual  meaning  of  the  law  and  the  prophets;  the 
vanity  of  mere  outward  observances ;  the  principle  of  love 
rather  than  the  way  of  sacrifices ;  divine  grace  rather  than 
human  righteousness,  as  the  basis  of  eternal  life;  the  revela- 
tion of  truth  through  the  Spirit  and  not  through  flesh  and 
blood ;  but  also,  as  to  himself  in  the  flesh,  guarded  them 
against  his  very  nearness,  save  as  they  should  regard  it  as 
the  nearness  of  the  Father.  He  had  taught  them  not  in 
definitions  and  formal  statements  of  truth,  but  in  parables, 
and  they  had  accepted  the  truth  as  life ;  slowly  but  surely 
the  glory  with  which  the  Father  had  glorified  him  had 
grown  before  their  waiting  eyes  and  had  enveloped  them, 
being  communicable  unto  them,  so  that  they  were  one 
with  him,  as  he  was  one  with  the  Father ;  they  held  the 
truth  as  it  was  given  to  them  in  its  natural  realism,  without 


224  THE   DIVINE    HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 

sophistication,  and  scarcely  venturing  to  give  it  a  purely 
intellectual  form,  lest  its  divine  charm  and  vitality  should 
escape. 

Upon  Paul  there  was  no  such  restraint.  Rather  he  was 
constrained  by  the  Spirit  to  give  expression  to  the  faith 
which  was  in  him  with  all  the  energies  of  his  mind  as 
well  as  of  his  heart.  The  operation  of  the  Spirit  does 
not  suppress  or  suspend  individuality.  The  divine  life  in 
Paul  was  Paul's  life  as  in  Peter  it  was  Peter's,  and  their 
expansion  and  exaltation  under  its  influence  did  not  pre- 
vent their  frailty  or  protect  them  against  fallibility.  The 
Spirit  is  given  to  every  man,  as  it  was  to  the  Hebrew 
prophets,  in  so  far  as  he  is  in  the  living  way,  but  its  sancti- 
fication  and  inspiration  do  not  insure  perfection  of  action 
or  of  expression.  It  is  the  same  Spirit  which  moved  Isaiah 
that  moved  Paul  and  Peter.  But  both  the  reception  and 
the  operation  are  different  for  Paul  and  Peter  because  of 
the  Christ. 

Christ  is  everything  to  Paul  as  he  is  to  Peter  and  John, 
but  his  expression  of  the  Christ-spirit  in  life  and  utterance 
is  different  from  theirs  in  temper,  attitude,  and  method. 
He  is  to  the  end  always  and  distinctively  Paul.  He  is  a 
scholar,  in  a  sense  in  which  the  disciples  are  not,  accus- 
tomed to  dialectic  disputation ;  and  while,  in  his  humility, 
he  would  throw  away  all  his  learning  as  foolishness,  he 
cannot,  and  his  discourse  follows  the  habit  of  his  logical 
training.  In  action  he  has  a  martial  attitude ;  he  is  ath- 
letic, resolute,  self-dependent.  He  has  been  more  com- 
pletely identified  with  the  strict  orthodoxy  of  Judaism  than 
have  the  disciples,  who  have  been  so  closely  drawn  to  their 
Lord;  therefore  his  reaction  against  it,  after  his  sudden 
conversion,  is  strong  and  uncompromising.  They  have 
more  of  the  child-like  spirit  which  yields  readily  to  author- 
ity, save  as  it  would  array  them  against  their  Lord.    But, 


EFFECT   OF  JUDAISM    UPON   PAUL.  225 

so  strong  in  Paul  is  the  habit  of  even  his  repudiated  Juda- 
ism, that  we  find  more  of  it  in  his  epistles  than  in  those  of 
Peter  and  John.  They  would  never  have  thought  of  the 
Mosaic  law  as  the  schoolmaster  which  led  them  to  Christ. 
They  would  never  have  sharply  distinguished  between 
justification  by  faith  and  justification  by  works,  because 
justification  itself  had  no  prominent  place  in  their  thoughts. 
To  them  Christ  was  simply  life ; —  salvation  was  from  the 
life.  To  Paul  also  Christ  was  the  life,  but  he  was  more- 
over the  all-sufiicient  substitute  for  Judaism — his  once- 
for-all  offered  sacrifice  for  its  burnt-offerings;  his  right- 
eousness, imputed  to  the  believer,  for  its  righteousness; 
justification  by  faith  in  him  for  its  justification  by  the 
works  of  the  law. 

Paul's  sudden  dislocation  from  Judaism  and  his  close 
relations  with  the  Gentile  world  intensified  the  conscious 
conflict  in  his  own  mind  between  elements  which  in  the 
minds  of  the  disciples  had  never  been  arrayed  in  sharp 
antagonism  against  each  other.  They  accepted  Judaism 
as  they  believed  it  had  been  accepted  by  their  Lord,  lay- 
ing little  stress  upon  its  formalities,  thinking  of  love  rather 
than  of  either  sacrifices  or  justification.  The  question  of 
communion  with  uncircumcised  Christians  first  made 
them  conscious  of  an  antagonism,  but  Peter  and  James 
forthwith  restored  concord,  they  themselves  holding  to 
their  old  custom,  while  not  insisting  upon  its  acceptance 
by  the  Gentiles.  Peter  had  already  had  the  heavenly 
vision  teaching  him  not  to  call  unclean  what  God  hath 
cleansed;  and  he  had  seen  that  the  uncircumcised  Cor- 
nelius, even  before  he  was  baptised,  received  the  gifts  of 
the  Spirit  notwithstanding.  Prejudice  remained  on  both 
sides,  illustrating  the  fallibility  of  human  nature  even  in 
Christians.  And  it  is  doubtless  true  that  Paul's  strong 
feeling  on  this  subject  had  much  to  do  in  determining 


226  THE   DiyiNE   HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 

the  character  of  his  epistles,  in  so  far  as  they  dealt  with 
Christianity  in  its  relation  to  the  Mosaic  law. 

But  Paul,  with  all  his  sharpness  of  definition  and  insist- 
ent logic,  has  not  that  lifeless  mechanism  which  is  so 
characteristic  of  modern  theology.  The  full  current  of 
Christian  vitality  is  in  all  his  discourse.  If  there  is  crys- 
tallisation, there  is  fervor  also.  If  the  lines  are  clearly  and 
tensely  drawn,  it  is  because  his  thoughts,  like  the  swift 
arrow  of  an  expert  archer,  go  straight  to  their  goal.  His 
imagination  has  the  flame  of  the  Spirit,  and  nowhere  in 
inspired  writings  is  there  a  more  exalted  expression  than 
he  has  given  us  of  the  love  of  God  and  of  human  love. 
His  epistles  are  triumphal  chants,  whose  subjects  are 
love,  freedom  and  universal  salvation.  His  idea  of  pre- 
destination is  so  expansive  that  it  would  burst  the  cere- 
ments of  any  formal  creed.  His  idea  of  mortification  has 
nothing  in  common  with  later  asceticism.  It  was  a  part 
of  his  repudiation  of  Judaism,  this  renunciation  of  the 
flesh  and  of  its  works;  and  it  was  also  a  revulsion  against 
the  vile  degradation  of  the  body  which  he  encountered 
everywhere  in  the  Gentile  world.  His  spiritual  exaltation 
leads  him  to  expressions  which  may  easily  be  miscon- 
strued; but  we  find  the  key  to  his  position  in  his  own 
words  :  Thenceforth  know  we  no  man  after  the  flesh ; 
yea,  though  we  have  known  Christ  after  the  flesh,  yet 
now  henceforth  know  we  him  no  more.  He  is  not  a 
theologian — however  true  it  may  be  that  he  is  the  cause 
of  theology  in  others  —  but  the  inspired  Prophet  of 
Christian  doctrine. 

The  position  of  the  disciples  at  Jerusalem  and  that  of 
Paul  has  each  its  separate  and  peculiar  frailty  and  perfl. 
In  the  one  there  is  the  danger  of  ecclesiastical  formalism 
and  of  ecclesiastical  despotism ;  in  the  other  there  is  the 
danger  of  intellectual  formalism,  of  mechanical  concep- 


THE   BRUISING    OF   GRAPES.  227 

tions,  at  first  limiting,  and  finally  tending  to  altogether 
exclude,  the  divine  life  and  truth.  So  long  as  there  is,  on 
the  one  hand,  the  vitality  of  the  Christian  faith  in  Peter 
and  John,  and,  on  the  other,  the  exaltation  of  Paul,  these 
perils  will  appear  only  as  tendencies;  but  they  will  de- 
velop in  future  generations  a  mortal  corruption. 

Not  once,  but  repeatedly,  must  Christ  be  delivered  up, 
not  only  to  persecution  by  his  enemies,  but  to  denial  and 
betrayal  by  his  own  disciples.  There  must  be  the  bruising 
of  grapes  for  the  wine  of  the  kingdom.  It  is  the  divine 
plan  and,  in  the  largest  vision,  the  prophet  seeth  who  he 
is  that  treadeth  the  wine-press. 

After  the  period  which  ends  with  the  martyrdom  of 
Stephen,  the  impressive  fact  of  the  first  Christian  genera- 
tion is  that  the  most  active  of  the  apostles  was  one  of 
Stephen's  persecutors,  receiving  his  apostolic  commission 
not  from  the  twelve  but  directly  from  God ;  a  fact  which 
is  an  everlasting  protest  against  human  authority  in  spir- 
itual affairs,  and  which  is  moreover  an  illustration  of  a 
divine  wisdom  transcending  human  judgments  and  ex- 
pectations. We  draw  an  arbitrary  line  separating  between 
those  who  are  His  and  those  who  are  not  His,  and  be- 
hold. He  chooses  from  them  that  are  not  known  as  His. 
The  Jews  were,  in  their  own  esteem,  God's  chosen  people, 
but  Christendom  became  Gentile.  The  Levites  were  re- 
garded as  His  holy  priesthood,  but  the  Christ  was  not  of 
the  tribe  of  Levi.  The  disciples  regarded  themselves  as 
the  sole  depositaries,  for  loosing  or  binding,  of  the  spirit- 
ual powers  conferred  upon  them  by  their  Lord ;  but  in  their 
own  day  they  beheld  the  greatest  expansion  of  the  king- 
dom going  on  outside  of  their  jurisdiction,  through  one 
from  whose  breathings  of  slaughter  they  had  fled,  and 
who  had  received  the  Spirit  without  the  laying  of  their 
hands  upon  him. 


THE   DiyiNE   HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 


XX 

Christianity  is  already  face  to  face  with  the  world. 

Its  spread  is  wondrously  rapid,  assisted  materially  by  every 

outward  circumstance — by  the  ease  of  commu- 

Marvellous        .         .  ,11  •  .  •  r 

Spread     nication  on  land  and  sea  m  a  time  of  great  com- 
°^        mercial  activity  ;  by  the  spiritual  indifference  of 

Christianity.  /•  ,  •  -,       ■  , 

Roman  rulers,  leadmg  to  toleration  during  the 
infancy  of  the  church;  by  the  wide  dispersion  of  the  Jews, 
who  have  a  colony  in  every  important  city  of  the  world, 
whose  adherence  to  the  traditions  of  their  fathers  has  been 
to  some  extent  relaxed  by  their  separation  from  Jerusalem, 
and  whose  synagogues  give  the  new  faith  its  first  foothold. 
Its  strongest  appeal  is  to  the  poor,  the  despised,  the  op- 
pressed ;  and,  in  the  Roman  world,  these  are  the  immense 
majority.  Its  inherent  vitality,  reaching  peoples  whose 
old  faiths  have  lost  their  vital  impulse,  and  who  are  not 
only  depressed  but  degraded,  has  a  mysterious  communi- 
cability.  The  disposition  of  the  poor  to  form  fraternal 
associations  for  mutual  help  and  protection  is  a  marked 
characteristic  of  this  age,  prevailing  to  such  an  extent  as 
to  call  forth  repressive  edicts,  so  that  the  brotherhoods  are 
disguised  as  Burial  Societies.  To  them  the  gospel  of  fra- 
ternity comes  as  a  fulfilled  dream.  Active  and  zealous  as 
Paul  is  in  his  missionary  work,  he  finds  everywhere  that  in 
some  way  the  Gospel  has  anticipated  him  and  found  a 
lodgment  in  the  hearts  of  men.  Persecution,  arising  at 
first  almost  entirely  from  Jewish  antagonism,  has  only  con- 
tributed to  a  more  rapid  growth  and  expansion. 

All  these  circumstances  have  affected  the  faith  itself, 
giving  it  special  tendencies.  The  poverty  of  its  adherents, 
together  with  their  acceptance  of  the  principle  of  submis- 
sion unto  the  powers  that  be,  as  ordained  of  God,  has 


SPECIAL    TENDENCIES.  229 

brought  into  undue  prominence  the  compensations  of  a 
future  Hfe  for  the  miseries  of  the  present,  and  intensified 
the  expectation  of  an  early  end  of  the  world.    Persecution, 
also,  while  it  has  increased  the  fervor  of  the  faithful,  has 
also  brought  a  kind  of  extreme  unction  to  those  ever  living 
in  the  presence  of  death,  and   the  overstrained  attitude 
characteristic  of  religious  devotees.     In  all  ways,  and  at    | 
all  times,  is  the  lesson  taught  us  that  only  in  the  universal 
regeneration  of  society  can  Christianity  be  wholly  itself 
and  fully  illustrate  its  own  spiritual  laws.    The  communism    ^ 
of  the  first  Christian  society  at  Jerusalem  could  not  be 
maintained  in  the  midst  of  a  general  system  in  antagonism 
therewith,   any  more    than  one  could  warm   the  wintry   1 
world  through  open  doors  from  his  own  household  hearth.   | 
Constantly  the   poor   at   Jerusalem  are  the  occasion  of 
solicitude  to  the   Gentile  churches.     The   first   word   of 
Christianity   to  all  men  is  that  they   must  stand  or  fall 
tosether. 


XXI 

Before  the  close  of  its  first  century  Christianity  has 
turned  its  face  westward,  leaving  far  behind  it  the  cedars  of 
Lebanon  and  the  Mount  of  Olives.    Already,  be- 

Westward 

fore  the  appearing  of  our  Lord,  there  had  been  a   Movement 
wide  dis])ersion  of  the  Jews  over  the  world,  in  the       .  °^  . 

i  •'  Christianity. 

accomphshment  of  that  divine  purpose  manifest 
in  the  uprooting  of  peoples  from  their  native  soil,  a  series 
of  dislocations  and  separations  necessary  as  a  preparation 
for  universal  brotherhood.  Moreover  these  dispersed  Jews 
had  Hellenised,  had  exchanged  the  Hebrew  for  the  Greek 
tongue.  Paul  was  born  a  Hellenist,  and  thus  was  espe- 
cially fitted  for  his  mission  as  an  apostle  to  the  Gentiles. 
We  see  how  completely,  though  unconsciously,  the  Roman 
18 


230  THE   DIVINE   HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 

masters  of  the  world  have  become  the  servitors  of  God, 
not  only  in  their  forced  union  of  all  nations  under  the  em- 
pire, but  in  their  conservation  of  the  Greek  culture,  which 
from  its  chief  centres — Rome,  Athens,  Alexandria,  Tarsus, 
Ephesus  and  Corinth — both  prepares  the  way  for  Chris- 
tianity and  has  so  much  to  do  with  its  development,  being, 
moreover,  itself  the  only  element  of  Pagan  civilisation  which 
has  in  it  any  lofty  spiritual  suggestion. 

But  it  is  in  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  that  Rome  is 
eminently  the  divine  servitor.  This  event  is  preceded  by 
the  monstrous  persecutions  both  of  Jews  and  Christians 
by  Nero,  the  Anti-Christ  of  the  Apocalypse,  and  by  civil 
commotions,  famines,  earthquakes  and  plagues  through- 
out the  world  —  all  of  which  enter  into  and  intensify  the 
dramatic  vision  seen  by  John  on  Patmos.  For  the  foot 
of  Christian  or  Jew  there  would  seem  to  be  no  sure  rest- 
ing-place on  the  face  of  the  earth.  Is  it  strange  that  the 
end  of  the  world  should  seem  to  be  at  hand  ? 

After  this  storm,  enveloping  the  world,  and  culminating 
in  the  fall  of  the  Holy  City — what  a  clearing  up  !  The 
structure  of  Judaism  is  gone  forever;  only  its  prophetic 
spirit — the  pre-evangel  of  our  Lord — survives.  Of  the 
twelve  there  only  remains  John,  the  beloved  disciple. 
Peter  and  Paul  have  both  perished,  victims  of  the  Nero- 
nian  persecution.  But  the  faith  survives  the  shock  which 
has  convulsed  all  its  outward  holdings,  and  is  ere  long  to 
give  forth  its  most  significant  and  triumphant  note  in  the 
fourth  Gospel,  from  Ephesus. 

But  the  spirit  of  the  disciples  at  Jerusalem  is  stronger 
now  that  the  old  structure  is  violently  torn  away  from 
them.  It  is  transferred  from  Jerusalem  to  Rome.  Thus 
emancipated,  it  is  the  life  of  the  church  in  its  new  ecclesi- 
astical development  under  the  episcopate,  and  for  a  long 
time  the   peculiar   characteristics  of  Paul's    doctrine  are 


VITALITY  OF  THE    GOSPEL.  231 

buried  out  of  sight  even  in  the  churches  of  his  own  estab- 
Hshment.     The  primacy  of  Peter  is  maintained. 

The  churches  estabhshed  by  Paul  did  not  have  that 
evangehc  current  of  Ufe  which  those  had  that  hstened  to 
the  preaching  of  Peter  and  John.  It  was  not  because 
the  Gospels  had  not  yet  been  committed  to  writing. 
Wherever  the  disciples  went,  they  carried  not  only  the 
evangelic  atmosphere  but  the  living  record  in  their  mem- 
ories of  the  wonderful  hfe  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  In  the 
nature  of  the  case  it  could  not  be  thus  with  Paul.  He 
was  not  ignorant  of  the  facts  of  Christ's  life  or  of  his  say- 
ings; but  after  his  conversion  his  life  was  one  of  incessant 
activity,  and  he  caught  only  the  general  spirit  and  the 
great  argument  of  the  Gospel.  Even  Luke,  who  was  his 
companion  for  a  time,  was  not  an  eye-witness,  and  speaks 
of  his  own  Gospel  as  a  compilation.  When,  therefore, 
these  Western  churches  received  the  Gospel  in  its  Galilean 
simplicity  —  some  of  them  from  Peter  and  all  of  them,  in 
due  time,  from  the  written  record — it  was  to  them  not, 
indeed,  a  new  revelation  of  spiritual  truth,  but  a  refreshing 
influence  from  the  very  fountain  of  their  hfe.  For,  what- 
ever of  legend  may  during  a  whole  generation  have  crept 
into  the  record,  still  was  there  preserved  the  natural  un- 
folding of  the  life  and  sayings  of  the  I>ord  and,  through 
these,  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  more  than  this, 
the  atmosphere  and  the  circumstances  of  this  wonder- 
ful drama,  which  were  necessary  to  its  full  impression 
upon  the  spiritual  sensibility.  Always  the  embodiment 
is  nearer  the  spiritual  sense  than  any  intellectual  repre- 
sentation can  be. 

It  is  not,  then,  that  any  of  the  disciples  is  greater  than 
Paul,  but  that  the  Gospel  is  greater  than  they  all.  There- 
fore it  is  that,  after  we  have,  in  the  history  of  early  Chris- 
tianity, turned  our  faces  from  Judea,  leaving  Jerusalem 


232  THE    DiyiNE    HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 

and  the  Temple  in  ruins,  still  from  the  Holy  Land  a  living 
influence  follows,  holding  us  at  each  remove  by  a  spell 
not  to  be  resisted,  syllabling  the  familiar  words  of  the 
Lord's  prayer,  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  of  many 
parables,  and  shaping,  on  the  mountains,  in  the  wilder- 
ness, by  the  Sea  of  Tiberias,  in  the  peace  of  Bethany,  and 
in  the  tumults  of  Jerusalem,  all  the  scenes  and  situations 
of  the  Life  of  Lives. 

XXII 

In  Paul's  epistles  written  during  his  captivity  at  Rome, 

and  in  the  fourth  Gospel,  we  see  evidences  of  a  develop- 

^     ,        ment  in  the  Christian  thought  concerning  Christ. 

Develop-  _  °  ° 

ment  of  Paul,  in  the  more  quiet  and  contemplative  period 
Though"  °^  ^^^  imprisonment,  and  John,  after  a  lifetime 
Concerning  of  Contemplation,  came  upon  common  ground 
in  their  view  of  the  eternal  sonship  of  the  Mes- 
siah, It  was  not  a  new  thought,  originated  by  them — 
since  our  Lord  himself  had  said,  "  Before  Abraham  was 
I  am " ;  but  they  gave  it  expansion  and  development, 
guided  thereto  by  the  divine  Spirit.  The  expression  of 
this  thought  in  Paul  is  like  that  of  a  triumphant  psalm 
celebrating  the  victory  of  humanity  over  sin  and  death, 
through  Christ,  "  who  is  the  image  of  the  invisible  God, 
the  first-born  of  every  creature,"  and  who  is  in  us  the  hope 
of  glory.  In  John  it  is  the  brooding  calm  of  a  fathomless 
and  luminous  heaven  —  the  peace  of  the  infinite  Love. 
Again  this  exultation  and  peace  shall  find  expression  in 
the  glorious  chant  of  the  Nicene  symbol,  and  then  fall 
into  notional  fragments,  assuming,  in  hfeless  creeds,  defi- 
nitions and  limitations  unknown  to  the  Gospel,  and  hav- 
ing no  more  resemblance  to  its  living  realities  than  have 
fallen  meteorites  to  the  radiant  stars. 


yiTALlTY   OF   EARLY    CHRISTIANITY.  233 


XXIII 

From  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  until  the  time  of 
Constantine,  the   Gospel  is  dominant  in  a  way  to  sub- 
ordinate all  philosophy  and  even  Paul's  vigorous 
thought,  which  had  been  so  important  in  con-    oiory  of 
nection  with  his  Gentile  mission  while  Judaism  Ante-Nicene 

_  Christianity. 

retained  its  vitahty.  When  the  new  faith  came 
into  direct  contact  with  Paganism,  it  reached  the  hearts 
of  the  multitude  through  the  story  of  Jesus  rather  than 
through  an  appeal  to  the  understanding.  It  is  at  a  later 
period  that  Paul's  doctrine  and  especially  his  spirit  of  free- 
dom were  to  have  their  greatest  influence.  But  during  the 
second  and  third  Christian  centuries,  while  the  church  is 
organising  about  Rome  as  its  principal  centre,  his  voice 
is  almost  silent.  Even  in  the  crystallisation  of  doctrine  in 
its  Ante-Nicene  stages  it  was  not  his  thought  which  was 
predominant ;  and  surely  in  the  subsequent  papal  develop- 
ment it  was  not  only  ignored  but  antagonised. 

Paul's  method,  as  well  as  his  doctrine,  was  found  un- 
necessary. The  most  striking  fact  connected  with  the 
spread  of  Christianity  in  the  Roman  empire,  after  the 
martyrdom  of  Paul  and  Peter,  is  the  absence  of  any  stren- 
uous missionary  enterprise.  The  vitality  of  Christianity 
was  such  that  it  found  its  way  into  every  household,  and 
excited  the  alarm  of  civil  magistrates  and  of  the  Pagan 
priests.  All  the  culture  of  the  empire  gathered  itself  to- 
gether to  find  some  antidote  in  philosophy  against  what  it 
considered  a  pestilent  superstition.  As  to-day  the  oppo- 
nents of  Christianity  try  to  find  a  substitute  therefor  in 
spiritualism  and  occultism,  borrowing  for  these  systems 
as  much  as  they  can  of  Christian  truth  and  vitality,  so, 
in  those  days,  Neo-Platonism,  Gnosticism  and  a  revived 


234  THE   DIVINE   HUMAN    FELLOIVSHIP. 

Pythagoreanism  united  their  forces  to  dethrone  the  young 
and  triumphant  faith  —  endeavoring  to  imitate  what  they 
sought  to  destroy.  But  no  mystical  speculations,  nor  even 
imported  or  manufactured  superstitions,  were  of  any  avail 
against  a  hfe.  The  Pagan  Mysteries,  in  which  the  people 
had  believed,  in  many  ways  anticipated  and  prepared 
them  for  the  acceptance  of  an  incarnate  saviour  who  had 
been  raised  from  the  dead.  As  in  his  lifetime  the  multi- 
tudes had  gathered  about  our  Lord  for  his  healing,  so 
now  the  whole  Pagan  world  seemed  to  press  forward 
toward  the  healing  fountain  of  life  in  the  Gospel.  The 
poor  and  the  oppressed  found  in  the  loving  brotherhood 
of  Christians  the  fellowship  denied  them  in  the  wholly 
Pharisaic  organisation  of  Paganism  in  the  Roman  Em- 
pire. The  Pagan  temples  were  deserted,  and  all  the  real 
vitality  of  the  Pagan  faith  seemed  to  go  forth  to  feed  a 
conflagration  which  involved  the  world. 

Ofhcial  Rome,  hitherto  so  tolerant,  save  under  the 
whimsical  tyranny  of  a  Nero,  was  aroused  and  sought 
to  extinguish  Christianity  by  persecution.  But  death  had 
no  terrors  for  them  to  whom  it  was  the  entrance  to  all 
they  held  most  precious.  The  emperors  were  not  moved 
by  any  religious  zeal,  and  they  soon  found  it  tiresome  to 
slay  those  who  so  eagerly  sought  martyrdom.  The  perse- 
cution was  often  relaxed ;  but  sometimes,  as  under  Decius, 
it  extended  throughout  the  empire.  It  was,  however, 
constant  enough  to  stimulate  the  faith,  to  intensify  its 
fervor,  and  to  multiply  its  adherents.  It  kept  the  Chris- 
tians out  of  othcial  life  and  free  from  its  temptations  and 
corruptions ;  it  extinguished  in  them  all  worldly  ambition, 
and  all  avarice,  since  they  were  secure  in  no  material  pos- 
session; and  if  it  developed  in  them  an  unnatural  con- 
tempt of  life,  and,  driving  them  into  the  catacombs,  laid 
the  foundation  of  future  asceticism  and  monasticism,  yet 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  EARLY  CHRISTIANS.   235 

these  tendencies  were  counteracted  by  the  fact  that  they 
were  drawn  nearer  together  in  brotherly  love,  and  nearer 
to  the  source  of  all  their  life,  so  that  their  beautiful  com- 
munion, divine  and  human,  had  much  of  the  spiritual 
might  and  illumination  which  glorified  the  first  Christian 
association  at  Jerusalem.  Not  only  was  the  blood  of  the 
martyrs  the  seed  of  the  church,  but  persecution  was  a 
divine  nursery  of  a  catholic  communion,  holding  in  abey- 
ance the  perils  of  ecclesiasticism. 

While  in  this  period  the  church  feeling  is  intensified,  so 
that  there  are  signs  of  the  belief  that  outside  of  the  church 
there  is  no  salvation ;  while  the  episcopate  is  firmly  estab- 
lished, to  such  an  extent  that  Cyprian,  the  Bishop  of  Car- 
thage, declares  that  where  the  bishop  is  there  is  the 
church ;  and  while,  in  this  same  Cyprian  and  other  of  the 
Fathers,  there  is  shown  the  tendency  to  a  stronger  ecclesi- 
astical organisation,  recognising  the  primacy  of  the  Bishop 
of  Rome,  yet  there  are  as  yet  no  traces  of  sacerdotalism. 
It  may  be  truly  said  that  in  this  period  the  Gospel  is  the 
dominant  influence  upon  Christian  life  and  thought. 

The  purity,  sweetness  and  strength  of  the  life  of  this  age 
is  hidden  from  us.  Even  in  the  writings  of  the  Ante- 
Nicene  Fathers  we  have  but  faint  glimpses  of  the  life  of 
these  children  of  a  new  world.  Their  meekness  we  know 
and  their  courage.  They  obeyed  the  laws  of  their  rulers, 
but  the  excellence  of  their  lives  was  beyond  anything  in- 
dicated in  the  laws.  The  world  was  agitated  because  of 
them,  but  they  were  filled  with  the  Spirit,  and,  though  fer- 
vent, were  calm.  They  were  not  reformers.  They  were 
not  antagonists.  They  were  Witnesses.  It  was  an  age  of 
simple,  childlike  faith  —  of  faith  in  a  Life  and  not  in  a 
Creed.  The  response  to  this  faith  was  a  work  not  less 
wonderful  than  the  raising  of  the  dead  —  the  quickening 
of  a  new  life  in  the  world. 


236  THE   DiyiNE   HUMAN    FELLOIVSHIP. 


XXIV 

By  a  sudden  revolution,  Christianity  becomes  the  state 

rehgion  of  the  Empire.     Christ  is  dehvered  over  to  the 

Roman  death.     Constantine  calls  the  Christians 

RecognTtion  ^oi'^''  the  catacombs,  where   they  had  life,  into 

.  °5  .     the  place  of  the  real  sepulchre  —  the  official  at- 

Christianity. 

mosphere  of  the  empire,  and  makes  them  who 
were  but  just  now  the  servants  and  victims  the  masters 
of  the  world.  While  feebly  comprehending  the  spiritual 
force  of  the  new  faith,  Constantine  clearly  saw  its  possi- 
bilities as  a  power  of  movement  and  organisation  on  a 
worldly  basis.  It  was  the  only  power  that  could  reno- 
vate society  and  build  up  a  new  civilisation — a  Christian 
empire. 

The  result  of  this  imperial  alliance  was  twofold.  The 
Christian  leaven  did  renovate  the  old  society,  modifying 
its  activities  in  every  department,  even  in  that  of  jurispru- 
dence. And,  on  the  other  hand,  the  paralysis  which  had 
benumbed  Rome  was  communicated  to  Christianity  as  an 
organisation,  which,  in  the  very  acceptance  of  the  alhance, 
surrendered  the  central  principle  of  its  vitality. 

If  it  had  been  the  divine  purpose  to  illustrate  the 
weakness  of  a  Christian  system  humanly  constructed  and 
moved  by  worldly  motives,  such  a  purpose  was  effectually 
accomphshed  in  the  history  of  the  Western  church.  The 
weakness  of  Christian  sacerdotaHsm  and  ecclesiasticism 
was  as  fully  demonstrated  as  had  been  that  of  Judaism. 
Starting  from  the  principle  that  the  visible  church  must  be 
considered  identical  with  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  it  is  just 
the  opposite  truth  that  is  made  apparent  in  this  develop- 
ment. In  its  limitations  of  the  divine  life,  it  excludes  that 
life.     To  have  the  mastery,  to  exercise  authority,  to  build 


THE    IVORLD    IN    THE    CHURCH.  237 

up  a  strong  outward  structure  upon  the  traditions  of  men, 
to  take  Christianity  in  hand  and  make  it  conform  to  the 
methods  of  the  world,  is  to  antagonise  the  divine  Spirit 
and  to  give  up  Christ.  The  ecclesiasticism  and  the  doc- 
trine developed  in  such  a  system  were  a  repudiation  of 
the  Gospel. 

We  are  not,  therefore,  surprised  by  the  sequel.  The 
church  adopted  worldly  methods.  The  decrees  of  her 
councils  were  secured  by  means  that  excite  even  worldly 
contempt.  She  became  the  persecutor  of  the  faithful — 
her  cruelties  exceeding  those  of  the  Ccesars,  even  as  the 
number  of  her  victims  were  greater.  In  her  greed  for 
wealth  and  power  she  deluged  the  world  with  blood.  She 
revived  the  Pagan  priesthood,  the  Pagan  idea  of  propiti- 
atory sacrifice  and  the  Pagan  ritual  with  its  splendid  cere- 
monies and  processions.  She  appealed  to  the  fears  of 
men.  Her  penances  took  the  place  of  penitence,  and 
casuistry  was  substituted  for  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 
Salvation  itself  was  bought  and  sold  for  so  many  pieces 
of  silver.  The  divine  jurisprudence  was  patterned  after 
that  of  this  world,  and  a  soteriological  system,  fashioned 
according  to  the  perverse  human  ideas  of  divine  justice, 
took  the  place  of  the  free  forgiveness  of  the  Gospel.  It 
was  the  old  Rome,  with  its  everlasting  death !  We  date 
the  dark  ages  from  the  overthrow  of  Rome  by  the  Barba- 
rians ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  through  these  invaders  that 
the  charnel-house  is  broken  up  and  the  light  let  in.  It 
is  Gothic  newness  of  life  embracing  the  genuine  faith  that 
becomes  the  hope  of  Christendom  —  Gothic  men  who 
revive  Paul  and  the  free  Spirit  of  the  Gospel. 


238  THE    DiyiNE    HUMAN    FELLOIVSHIP. 


XXV 

This  record  of  failure,  while  it  teaches  that  the  visible 

church  is  fallible  and  that  it  is  so  far  from  being  necessary 

to  the  kingdom  that  it  may  become  the  embodi- 

The  Church  r       n       i  •  •      •         i 

in  the  mcnt  of  all  that  is  antagonistic  thereto,  is  no 
^""^w^H   reflection  upon   Christianity.     Neither  is  it  an 

in  the  cvidcnce  that  there  has  ever  ceased  to  be  that 
invisible  communion  of  God's  children  which  is 
the  real  and  continuous  embodiment  of  the  Christ-life.  It 
was  not  the  bride  that  became  the  harlot. 

Christianity  manifests  the  divine  life  upon  the  earth, 
even  as  the  Christ  was  that  life — the  power  over  all  flesh, 
the  faith  to  which  nothing  is  impossible,  the  association 
of  brethren.  Our  wills  and  our  understandings  do  not 
mould  that  life,  but  are  moulded  by  it.  We  receive  and 
wait  and  follow.  The  moment  we  take  the  mastery  in 
any  way  we  construct  for  ourselves  a  kind  of  life,  but  it  is 
not  the  life  of  the  kingdom.  When  we  simply  receive  the 
Spirit  and  are  moved  thereby,  there  is  outward  expression, 
there  is  prophecy  and  interpretation,  and  the  spontaneous 
growth  of  association,  having  no  resemblance  to  any 
association  shaped  by  human  energy  and  thought — like 
a  government,  for  example — but  resembling  rather  that 
natural  grouping  which  we  call  a  family,  which  is  a 
divine  institution.  How  familiar  are  the  indications  and 
phrases  representing  such  an  association  in  the  Gospel ! 
What  a  world  of  meaning,  relieving  the  nostalgia  of  the 
whole  human  family,  in  that  one  phrase — "  In  my 
Father's  house "  !  Our  Lord  never  saith,  "  thy  fellow- 
man,"  but,  "thy  brother."  He  saith,  "the  kingdom," 
but  is  careful  to  distinguish  it  from  the  kingdom  of  this 
world.     He    takes   his   illustrations   not   from   the  world 


THE    NATURAL    TRADITION   OF   LIFE.  239 

of  man's  ethical  and  conventional  adjustments,  but  from 
Nature. 

There  was,  indeed,  to  be  a  development  beyond  what 
our  Lord  had  definitely  revealed,  but  it  was  to  be  under 
the  guidance  of  the  same  Spirit — not  on  artificial  lines  but 
in  living  ways.  As  the  body  of  a  man  is  not,  in  its  vital 
functions,  under  the  control  of  his  volition,  so  the  spiritual 
life  of  the  Christian  Brotherhood  is,  in  its  vital  functions, 
a  divine  operation,  to  which  the  human  will  and  under- 
standing, once  surrendered,  must  be  subject.  The  subjec- 
tion is  reasonable  only  because  it  is  natural — that  is,  in 
perfect  correspondence  to  the  operations  of  all  life.  Abe- 
lard  was  right  in  applying  the  natural  test  to  faith.  But 
our  Lord,  being  in  complete  harmony  with  Nature,  could 
truly  say,  "  If  ye  do  my  will,  ye  shall  know  the  doctrine." 

The  world  in  the  church  stands  upon  a  very  different 
basis  from  that  of  the  church  in  the  world.  Its  authority 
is  not  natural,  and  is  not  reasonable.  It  is  not  in  the 
living  way,  and  its  very  traditions  are  lifeless. 

XXVI 

There    is    in    the    genuine    Christian   development   a  \ 
natural  tradition  of  life  from  generation   to  generation ; 
but  it  is  as  a  stream  which  is  borne  onward  with 
increasing  volume  and  momentum,  never  turn-    TrJartion. 
ing  backward.     It  is  the  immediate  and  contin- 
uous communication  of  impulse.     The  new  generation  not 
only  by  inheritance  receives  the  life  of  the  preceding,  but 
has  long  enough  contact  therewith  for  the  reception  of  all 
the  lessons  of  a  living  experience.     Wisdom  comes  as  by 
a  kind  of  induction  through  the  contact  of  the  young 
with  the  old.     If  the  current  of  life  is  full  and  the  progres- 
sive impulse  strong,  it  is  a  quick  induction,  and  the  young 


240  THE   DIVINE    HUMAN    FELLOIVSHIP. 

life  the  more  easily  speeds  ahead  of  the  old,  and  the  pre- 
existing relation  is  inverted — the  inspiration  of  youth  is 
communicated  to  age ;  and  it  is  a  part  of  the  wisdom  of 
the  elders  that  they  expect  and  readily  yield  to  this  inspi- 
ration, rejoicing  that  they  may  share  this  new  heritage — 
this  increment  of  glory.  And  this  is  the  meaning  of  the 
Scripture  respecting  the  turning  of  the  hearts  of  the  fathers 
unto  the  children.  In  such  a  tradition  the  fathers  do  not 
arbitrarily  impose  the  form  of  their  own  life  upon  the 
children,  much  less  the  limitations  of  remote  generations. 
The  prophet  is  succeeded  by  new  and  greater  prophets, 
and  not  by  a  school  of  commentators.  In  such  a  devel- 
opment no  period  can  be  distinguished  as  an  age  of  super- 
naturalism —  the  greatest  wonders  must  ever  be  to  come; 
there  is  no  conclusion  of  inspiration,  no  crystallisation  into 
unchangeably  fixed  forms  of  life  or  of  behef,  no  unyielding 
stability  of  any  sort. 

XXVII 

Both  the  worldly  life  and  that  of  the  kingdom,  while 

rooted  in  the  heart — one  in  a  heart  resisting  the  divine 

Spirit,  the  other  in  a  heart  quickened  by  that 

Civilisation  .  .  .  ,      ,,       . 

as  shown  Spirit — havc  their  expression  wholly  m  an  out- 
in  History,  .^y^^-^j  organic  development  upon  the  earth.  One 
development  we  call  civilisation,  and  the  other  was  called 
by  our  Lord  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

What  is  this  which  we  call  civilisation,  considered  as  an 
embodiment  of  the  worldly  scheme  ? 

The  desire  for  conquest  and  for  material  advantage  has 
for  the  most  part  dominated  the  movements  of  mankind  as 
recorded  in  history.  The  highways  of  the  world  have  been 
first  laid  out  by  the  soldier,  and  the  merchant  has  ever  fol- 
lowed him  in  these  paths.     It  is  in  this  way  that  the  dif- 


THE    IVORLDLY   SCHEME.  241 

ferent  peoples  of  the  earth  came  to  know  each  other. 
Geography  is  first  of  all  a  chart  of  empires,  and  next  an 
indication  of  the  lines  of  commerce. 

Fighting  and  trading  have  been  the  main  business  of 
the  human  race  from  the  beginning ;  at  least,  the  historian 
has  found  little  else  worthy  of  his  commemoration.  The 
humanities  of  civihsation  would  seem  to  have  grown  out 
of  its  inhumanities ;  and,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  noblest 
and  most  virile  periods  of  human  history  seem  to  have  been 
those  in  which  there  was  the  most  downright  fighting. 

In  the  lulls  of  peace  there  would  appear  to  have  been 
the  most  ignoble  exhibition  of  human  selfishness.  The 
brutishness  of  glutted  ambition,  of  forces  relaxed  after 
martial  strain,  the  gladiatorial  contests  of  peace,  the  com- 
petitions of  the  market-place — these  are  the  meanest  as- 
pects of  human  life  as  shown  in  history.  The  education 
of  youth  in  the  warrior  periods  was  correspondingly  nobler 
than  in  those  dominated  by  the  commercial  idea.  Greater 
importance  was  attached  to  manly  exercises;  and  there 
was  at  least  a  wholesome  development  of  physical  powers. 
The  literature  and  philosophy  of  these  periods  reflected 
this  virihty.  Physical  heroism  has  this  one  virtue,  at  least 
— that  it  readily  confronts  death,  counting  it  as  nothing. 
It  is  in  more  comfortable  and  luxurious  times,  when  the 
studies  of  youth  are  occupied  by  the  artifices  and  subtleties 
through  which  they  may  get  the  better  of  each  other  in 
the  mart  and  the  forum,  that  that  extreme  selfishness  is 
developed,  the  sign  of  which  is  indicated  in  the  maxim, 
"All  that  a  man  hath  will  he  give  for  his  life." 

Moreover  in  the  great  and  decisive  conflicts  of  history 
down  to  those  which  arrested  the  progress  of  Mohamme- 
danism in  the  West,  there  was  usually,  on  one  side,  some 
new  and  vigorous  race,  in  which  the  primal  passions  of 
Nature  were  strong,  and  which  had  not  yet  lost  its  virile 


242  THE   DIVINE    HUMAN    FELLO^VSHIP. 

force  in  any  artificial  system  of  training.  The  triumph  of 
these  peoples,  whose  very  existence  was  hardly  suspected 
ere  they  broke  forth  upon  the  complacent  valleys,  with  the 
abruptness  of  storms  whose  strength  is  first  manifest  in  the 
havoc  they  have  made,  had  in  it  a  kind  of  wholesome 
virtue,  like  that  of  the  mountain  torrents  which  purify  what 
they  overwhelm — the  virtue  of  a  Hercules  cleansing  the 
Augean  stables  of  a  stagnant  life.  These  movements  not 
only  resemble  those  of  Nature,  through  which  the  sudden 
urgency  of  her  winds  and  her  waves  overthrows  what  has 
seemed  most  fixed  and  stable,  but  we  inevitably  associate 
with  them  a  divine  purpose,  which,  like  the  violence  of 
flood  and  earthquake,  takes  the  semblance  of  a  majestic 
wrath;  nay,  these  activities,  however  perverse  in  their 
impelling  motive,  and  entirely  unconscious  of  their  higher 
meaning,  serve  to  illustrate  the  heavenly  and  saving  oper- 
ation by  which  the  new  and  vital  displaces  the  old  and 
outworn.  Verily  God  is  in  His  world,  even  in  its  world- 
liness — the  God  not  of  the  dead  but  of  the  living, 
acknowledging  as  His  own  that  which  is  not  willingly 
His  own,  lodging  in  the  brutal  Eliminations  of  human 
wrath  the  lightnings  of  His  heaven,  which  destroy  that 
they  may  save. 

XXVIII 

But  let  us  consider  and  measure  this  worldly  scheme  in 
the  terms  of  its  own  philosophy. 

Worldly  According  to  this  philosophy,  man  is  not 
Philosophy  fallen ;  his  first  estate  was  his  lowest,  and  he  has 

Worldly    nscn  from  age  to  age  to  constantly  higher  planes 

Scheme.  Qf  action.  From  the  physical  is  evolved  the 
mental,  and  from  these  the  moral.  Man's  history, 
since  he   came   to   have  a  history,  is  the   record   of  his 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  IVORLDLY  SCHEME.    243 

successful  conflicts  with  brute  force  without  and  within. 
As  a  savage,  he  confronted  Nature  in  a  condition  of 
almost  utter  helplessness.  With  the  development  of  intel- 
ligence he  succeeded  in  bringing  natural  forces  to  his  aid, 
and  came  to  look  upon  them  not  as  enemies  but  as  aUies. 
He  took  Nature  in  hand  and  improved  upon  her  plan, 
transforming  her  wilderness  into  a  garden,  domesticating 
wild  animals,  and  subduing  her  wildness  in  his  own 
primal  appetites  and  passions  by  the  temperance  of  his 
reason  and  the  restraints  of  moral  culture.  He  wrestled 
with  Nature,  as  Jacob  with  the  angel,  compelling  her  to 
bless  him.  He  found,  moreover,  within  himself  a  mys- 
terious power  more  imperative  than  his  passions  in  its 
compulsion,  associating  itself  with  hopes  and  fears  that 
overleaped  the  bounds  of  his  narrow  sense-experience,  in- 
forming his  imagination,  so  that  the  darkness,  the  sea,  nay, 
the  common  light  of  day  itself,  were  peopled  with  bright 
or  dreadful  shapes,  inviting  or  forbidding;  and  it  made 
wholly  its  own  the  invisible  realm  beyond  the  grave. 
Fear  made  the  first  gods;  but,  with  every  advance  in 
knowledge  and  the  arts,  the  faces  of  man's  divinities  grew 
brighter  and  friendlier.  Dominion  over  Nature  and  him- 
self gave  him  also  dominion  over  his  superstition.  He 
took  religion  in  hand,  and  shaped  its  outward  embodiment 
to  suit  his  improved  civilisation.  This  progress  is  from 
simple  to  complex  in  all  social  development.  At  every 
step  it  is  an  emancipation  from  some  form  of  bondage  — 
physical,  mental,  moral,  or  religious.  The  scheme  must 
not  be  judged  wholly  by  its  past  or  its  present.  It  has  its 
own  millennial  prophecies,  promising,  in  its  ultimate  per- 
fection, universal  peace  and  freedom,  the  complete  mas- 
tery of  Nature,  the  abolition  of  drudgery  through  the 
practical  appHcation  of  scientific  discoveries  and  inven- 
tions, the  expulsion  of  disease  and  the  indefinite  prolonga- 


244  THE   DIVINE   HUMAN   FELLOWSHIP. 

tion  of  life,  the  extinction  of  poverty,  the  union  of  all 
mankind  in  associative  harmony,  and  the  estabhshment 
of  righteousness. 

XXIX 

Such  is  the  philosophic  plea  for  civilisation  according 
to  the  worldly  scheme. 

It  is  assumed  that,  as  there  has  been  no  de- 
^        generation,    there   is   no   need  of  regeneration. 

Considera-    °  .  ... 

tion  of  Progress  is  through  a  series  of  conflicts,  m  each 
Pka  ^^  which  a  higher  plane  of  movement  is  reached, 
and,  at  each  successive  stage,  brute  force  and 
passion  are  transmuted  into  a  finer  and  more  complex 
form.  There  is  no  radical  change  of  the  human  heart, 
by  which  its  motives  are  transformed,  or  by  which  it  is 
brought  into  willing  co-operation  with  the  will  of  a  heav- 
enly Father.  It  is  a  gladiatorial  scheme,  beginning  and 
continuing  in  resistance  to  that  will ;  a  struggle  to  attain, 
by  its  own  strength,  perfection  within  its  limited  scope 
and  in  the  line  of  its  Hmited  aspirations. 

If  we  could  conceive  of  this  worldly  life  as  going  on 
uninterruptedly,  and  having  its  own  way  upon  earth,  we 
should  see  that  a  refined  selfishness  might  indeed  lead  to 
a  mechanical  sort  of  altruism,  since  the  welfare  of  the 
individual  must  depend  upon  that  of  all;  that  war  might 
give  way  to  a  forced  peace ;  that  competition  might  yield 
to  combination ;  and  that  perfect  equity  might  result  from 
a  nice  scientific  adjustment  of  social  relations;  and  all 
this,  the  human  heart  remaining  the  same. 


GOD   IN    THE    WORLDLY   SCHEME.  245 


XXX 

But  no  scheme  of  life  can  be  godless.  The  bee,  as  it 
flits  from  flower  to  flower,  is  seeking  only  to  slake  its 
thirst  for  sweets,  ignorant  that  while  the  flowers 

.  1  he 

are  nourishing  him,  he  is  perpetuatmg  them.  Divine  Life 
So  man,  in  following  the  devices  of  his  own  ^^'j'^^y 
heart,  unwittingly  accomphshes  the  divine  pur-  Scheme 
poses.  We  note  only  his  feverish  haste  toward 
the  satisfaction  of  his  greed  or  ambition ;  but  all  of  his 
faultful  Hfe  fits  into  a  faultless  web.  Whatever  may  be 
his  volition  or  proposition,  the  divine  disposition  holds 
him  through  unseen  bonds  to  the  Eternal  Purpose.  Con- 
sider w^hat  it  means  in  the  divine  dynamics  that  every 
moment  a  child  is  born  into  the  world  —  the  incarnate 
symbol  of  the  new  life.  If  only  for  one  generation  the 
hearts  of  the  fathers  should  be  turned  to  the  children, 
society  would  be  regenerated.  How  near  women  are 
kept  to  the  living  way  because  of  their  motherhood. 
Man  may  seem  to  quite  entirely  divorce  himself  from  any 
outward  bond  to  Nature,  but  woman  must  be  held  by  this 
one  tie,  and,  therefore,  unseliish  love  cannot  wholly  die  in 
her  heart.  In  all  the  intensity,  exaltation  and  tenderness 
of  that  love  out  of  which  in  all  ages  has  grown  the  home, 
the  heavenly  Father  hath  invited  all  souls  unto  a  higher 
love ;  and,  if  He  hath  appeared  in  these  relations  which 
are  confined  to  the  earthly  continuance  of  human  life,  He 
hath  all  the  more  made  His  presence  and  power  felt  with 
reference  to  His  eternal  purposes,  even  in  the  unconsent- 
ing  heart  of  man  :  in  every  unselfish  friendship,  in  every 
stirring  of  compassionate  sympathy,  in  every  noble  aspira- 
tion, in  every  response  of  the  heart  to  Nature's  deeper 
meanings,  in  every  softening  and  subduing  sorrow. 
19 


246  THE   DIVINE   HUM/IN    FELLOIVSHIP. 

Whatever  of  fragrance  and  beauty,  of  sweetness  and  light, 
there  has  been  in  the  flowering  of  humanity  in  any  age 
or  country  is  the  glory  of  the  divine  intent,  showing  as 
through  a  veil  which  the  reluctant  soul  keeps  between  its 
own  and  the  heavenly  plan.  Wherever  there  is  Ufe,  fresh, 
up-springing,  it  is  of  God,  and  is  cherished  of  Him,  and 
reinforced  by  every  vital  current  of  Nature,  and  by  His 
indwelling  Spirit  bearing  it  up  against  all  hardening  and 
corrupting  influences,  against  the  maxims  of  worldly  ex- 
perience—  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees. 
But,  if  it  yield  unto  the  leaven  of  the  world,  its  juices  are 
dried  up,  and  it  fafls  to  pieces  of  its  own  britdeness,  or  is 
swept  away  by  a  fresher  current  of  life.  Thus,  as  we  have 
seen,  whole  races  wither,  and  are  overrun  by  those  whose 
vitality  is  not  yet  exhausted.  Thus  a  great  city  is  every 
few  years  renewed  by  the  absorption  of  rustic  vitality. 
Thus,  indeed,  a  new  generation  ever  comes,  with  fresh 
ideals  and  a  trumpet-blast  of  hope ;  and,  while  it  is  still 
folded  close  to  God  and  Nature  in  its  youthful  dream,  the 
divine  harmony  strives  to  find  expression  in  every  shaping 
of  its  outward  life. 

This  new  life  overflows  its  limitations,  in  ideal  aspira- 
tion, in  the  dreams  of  genius.  It  is  thus  that  art  is  born 
— the  overflow  taking  spontaneously  a  rhythmic  expression 
in  dance  and  song.  The  less  vital  forms  of  art — painting, 
sculpture  and  architecture  —  through  which  life  finds 
rhythmic  expression  in  stone  or  on  the  canvas,  gaining  in 
the  durability  of  the  material  what  is  lost  in  vitahty,  in- 
dicate the  recession  of  the  flood- tide,  a  period  in  which 
provision  is  made  against  life's  brevity;  the  dramatic 
movement  is  fixed  in  statuesque  groupings,  the  music  is 
frozen  into  marble  arches  and  pillars  and  arabesques.  The 
ideal  dream  of  youth,  fed  by  the  rich  juices  of  Nature,  as 
by  strong  wine,  full  of  an  enthusiasm  which  ignores  death, 


THE    CHRIST-LIFE    IN    THE    IVORLD.  247 

expressing  life  through  a  more  vivid  Hfe  —  through  accel- 
erated movement,  through  quickened  vibrations  that  them- 
selves leap  to  over- tones — yields  at  length  to  the  hardness 
and  heaviness  of  the  worldly,  which,  seeking  to  arrest 
death,  arrests  life  also,  holding  in  mortal  suspense  and  re- 
pose its  very  representations  on  frescoed  wall  and  carven 
frieze.  Yet,  even  in  repose,  are  these  shapes  beautiful 
with  their  rhythmic  suggestions  of  the  divine  though  halt- 
ing harmony. 

Thus  even  into  the  worldly  scheme  of  life  there  enters 
not  only  all  the  God-given  strength  of  man,  but  the  divine 
life  itself,  giving  it,  despite  its  perversion,  as  much  of 
truth  and  beauty  as  its  broken  types  will  hold,  garland- 
ing its  very  ruins  with  the  flowers  of  a  not  wholly  for- 
gotten Eden. 

XXXI 

Behold,  then.  Beloved,  what  a  charm  there  hath  been 
in  the  divine  invitation  to  Hfe!     Nature  hath  not  called 
unto  man  wholly  in  vain,  and  the  striving  of  the       -^he 
Spirit  with  him  hath   not  been  without  effect.   Christ-Life 
And,  since  the  appearing  through  His  Son  and     woridiy 
the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  of  the  kingdom,     Scheme, 
how  hath  the  leaven  of  the  kingdom  wrought  upon  the 
hearts  of  men ! 

So  mighty  is  this  divine  life,  and  reaching  so  far  in  its 
infinite  love,  in  ways  unseen  by  us,  that  all  judgment  is 
taken  from  us,  all  arbitrary  discernment  between  the  chil- 
dren of  this  world  and  the  children  of  the  kingdom.  It  is 
God  Himself  who  is  taking  care  of  His  kingdom,  and  not 
we;  it  is  He  and  not  we  who  shall  determine  in  what  ways 
He  will  reconcile  the  world  unto  Himself.  He  hath  regard 
to  no  distinctions  such  as  we  are  wont  to  make — between 


248  THE    DiyiNE    HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 

Jew  and  Gentile,  baptised  or  unbaptised.  The  field  is  the 
world,  and  it  is  a  field  without  fences.  The  wheat  is  not 
in  one  part  thereof  and  the  tares  in  another  —  they  are 
growing  together.  To  our  eyes  the  tares  may  appear  most 
conspicuous ;  but  we  know  not  the  power  which  is  in 
the  seed  that  our  Lord  hath  sown.  We  see  what  seems 
to  be  a  mighty  maelstrom  swallowing  up  childhood  and 
youth,  all  noble  aspirations,  all  true  manhood  and  woman- 
hood. It  is,  indeed,  this  which  is  visible;  but  if  our 
blessed  Lord  should  show  us  what  he  sees  in  the  hearts 
of  men,  if  he  should  give  us  the  large  range  of  vision 
which  comes  of  absolute  faith — and  the  nearer  we  come 
to  him  the  more  he  gives  us  this — we  would  see  the  weak- 
ness of  what  seems  to  us  so  strong,  would  understand  how 
the  things  which  are  not  bring  to  nought  the  things  which 
are,  and  would  learn  that  abundance  and  fertility  belong 
/  only  to  the  divine  life.  We  would  see  that  in  all  the  revo- 
'  lutions  and  upheavals  by  which  what  we  call  the  emanci- 
pations of  our  life  have  been  effected,  man  hath  proposed 
j  one  thing,  and  God  hath  wrought  another,  and  greater. 
It  is  a  narrow  philosophy  which  discerns  only  the  human 
proposition,  ignoring  the  divine  purpose.  Faith,  illumi- 
nated by  the  Spirit  of  Truth,  discerns  only  the  divine  pur- 
pose, and  sees  that  every  time  "  the  old  order  changeth, 
giving  place  to  new,"  it  is  the  kingdom  of  God  which  is 
advancing  and  that  of  the  worldly  which  is  receding,  that 
Christ  is  being  glorified,  though  unto  the  eye  of  sense  it 
seemeth  the  hour  when  he  is  to  be  delivered  up. 


>^ 


XXXII 


Wheresoever  it  breaks  and  yields,  the  worldly  scheme 
takes  on  the  strength  of  God ;  it  is  only  in  its  own  proper 
triumphs  that  its  weakness  is  illustrated.     Its  characteristic 


PREDOMINANCE    OF   MECHANICAL    SYSTEM.   249 

distinction  is  its  unvitality,  and  this  distinction   becomes 
more  evident  at  every  stage  of  its  progress,  in  some  new 
surrender  of  life  and  the  greater  predominance       ^^^ 
of  system.     Patriarchal  simplicity  is  given  up,   UnvitaiUy 

,..,..  1-1  of  the 

and  a  more  complex  civilisation  takes  its  place,     woridiy 
in   which,   while   men   are   brought   nearer  to-     ^'^^'^"'^ 

'  °  in  Itself. 

gether,  they  are  farther  removed  from  Nature. 
In  the  development  of  industry  and  commerce,  the  city 
becomes  dominant,  draining  into  itself  not  only  the 
products  of  the  country  but  its  very  life,  modifying  all 
industries  to  suit  its  artificial  wants,  substituting  unnatural 
amusements  for  simple  pleasures,  developing  an  artificial 
system  of  life  in  art,  education  and  society.  When  the 
lifeless  forms  of  ancient  civilisation  were  broken  up,  the 
crude  energies  which  had  demolished  them  submitted  to 
the  sovereignty  of  the  intelligence  which  had  shaped  the 
complex  mechanism  of  Roman  life;  while  the  fresh  im- 
pulses of  the  new  life,  despite  its  ignorance,  gave  for  a 
time  its  wild  fragrance  and  charm  to  medioeval  institu- 
tions, catching  eagerly  enough  of  the  vital  breathings  of 
the  Gospel  to  withstand  the  prevalent  cynicism  and  ascet- 
icism of  a  monkish  age,  to  develop  chivalry,  and  to  trans- 
form basilicas  into  Gothic  cathedrals,  giving  to  architecture 
the  shaping  of  its  free  forest  life;  while  it  survived  the 
wreck  of  feudalism,  and  breathed  something  of  its  free 
spirit  into  nascent  nationalities;  while  even  to-day  its 
sweetness  and  savor  linger  in  homely  virtues,  in  honest 
manliness  and  womanliness,  in  wholesome  patriotic  aspi- 
rations—  yet,  for  the  most  part,  its  forces  seem  to  have 
been  exhausted  in  building  up  the  monstrous  artificial 
structure  of  our  modem  civilisation.  With  the  Renais- 
sance came  the  characteristic  watchword  of  modem  pro- 
gress, declaring  that  "  Knowledge  is  Power."  We  have 
glorified  the  understanding,  placing  it  not  only  above  the 


250  THE   DiyiNE    HUMAN   FELLOWSHIP. 

physical  but  above  the  spiritual.  With  every  new  dis- 
covery of  Nature's  laws,,  and  every  new  practical  applica- 
tion of  them,  we  have  surrendered  something  of  hfe,  in 
response  to  the  demands  of  a  relentless  system.  The  new 
industrial  era,  with  its  extreme  division  of  labor,  has  made 
the  work  of  a  man's  hands,  which  was  formerly  in  some 
sense  vital,  wholly  mechanical.  Corporate  organisation, 
while  it  has  almost  neutralised  individual  competition,  has 
given  a  power  to  wealth  which  no  government  not  abso- 
lutely despotic  would  venture  to  exercise;  and  in  large 
combinations,  these  organisations  have  placed  the  people 
at  the  mercy  of  an  oligarchy.  And  such  is  the  vice  of  the 
system,  in  its  ruinous  waste,  that  such  combinations,  how- 
ever despotic,  are  regarded  as  a  rehef.  In  such  a  system, 
the  factory  with  its  unnatural  confinement  is  a  necessity ; 
and  so  severe  has  become  the  industrial  competition  that 
in  some  countries  the  workingman's  one  day  of  rest  has 
been  invaded.  Is  it  wonderful  that  despotic  combination 
should  seem  a  blessing  in  comparison  with  the  waste  and 
intolerable  exactions  of  competition?  The  majority  of 
civilised  mankind  are  bound  hand  and  foot  to  this  me- 
chanical monster,  their  energies  being  wholly  exhausted  in 
gaining  a  physical  subsistence.  And  the  science  which 
has  helped  modern  society  to  the  elaboration  of  this  sys- 
tem, has  done  its  utmost  to  abolish  "superstition,"  to 
destroy  the  "illusion"  of  immortality,  to  substitute  an 
Almighty  Power  for  a  loving  Father,  and  to  give  us  an 
ethical  Christ.  It  has  secularised  our  schools,  and  made 
of  them  mental  factories,  the  strain  of  whose  mechanism  is 
as  severe  as  that  of  industry,  and  whose  scope  is  ever 
more  and  more  limited  to  material  aims.  It  has  devital- 
ised art,  and  made  even  the  leisure  of  the  rich  a  wilder- 
ness of  corroding  cares  and  hfeless  pleasures  —  and  there 
are  no  Barbarians  to  conquer  us ! 


THE   RELIGION   OF   HUMANITY.  251 


XXXIII 

''  What  then  ?  "  saith  the  Philosopher — "  We  have  not 
reached  the  highest  plane.  Social  science  has  yet  her 
work  to  do.  All  these  mechanical  improve- 
ments have  increased  the  facilities  of  commu-  Sociological 
nication  between  men,  ever  widening  their  ^i'"^""'"""- 
associative  activities,  having  in  view  the  final  emancipa- 
tion. When  knowledge  is  perfect,  there  will  be  perfect 
equaUty.  These  corporate  combinations  are  preparing 
the  way  for  a  system  of  universal  co-operation.  Then 
there  will  be  no  rich  and  no  poor.  In  a  perfect  democ- 
racy, the  state  will  regulate  everything.  Every  one  will 
do  his  allotted  share  of  work,  and  all  will  have  sufficient 
leisure  for  symmetrical  development.  We  shall  apply 
science  to  the  perfection  of  the  human  race  through  natural 
selection.  Then,  the  environment  also  being  wholly  ar- 
ranged according  to  reason,  we  shall  attain  unto  perfect 
righteousness,  and  realise  the  highest  dreams  of  science 
in  the  Religion  of  Humanity." 

Granting  the  possibility  of  such  an  attainment,  what  — 
considered  as  a  merely  scientific  achievement — would  it 
be  worth  ?  It  would  indeed  be  the  perfection  of  a  mech- 
anism now  so  defective  that  science  has  condemned  it  as 
ridiculous  judged  by  the  standard  of  its  own  pretensions — 
so  defective  that  considered  as  a  system  for  the  production 
of  wealth,  it  is  such  a  failure  that  the  equal  distribution  of 
its  products  would  leave  all  the  sharers  miserably  poor. 
The  programme  of  sociology  fully  carried  out  will  indeed 
remove  this  reproach,  and  will  be  a  justification  of  science. 
But  selfishness  would  not  be  eradicated  from  the  human 
heart.  Indeed,  it  is  educated  selfishness  that  is  embodied 
in  this  proposed  perfect  ethical  system  of  adjustments.     In 


253  THE   DIVINE   HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 

this  artificially  produced  equilibrium,  this  dull  uniformity 
of  an  absolutely  regulated  existence,  the  last  of  life  must 
have  been  surrendered. 


XXXIV 

But,  as  in  every  movement  hitherto,  by  which  man  has 
proposed  to  himself  a  more  advanced  stage  in  his  regulation 
of  Nature  and  society,  God  has  invisibly  decreed 
The       His  own  purpose  in  the  place  of  man's  proposi- 
is'Jue.      tion,  so,  doubtless,  He  patiently  awaiteth  this 
final  transition,  this  last  refinement  of  civilisa- 
tion,  this  consummation  of  human  mechanism,  for  the 
most  glorious  manifestation  of  His    following   love — so 
that,  in  the  end,  it  shall  be  not  the  human  but  the  divine 
wisdom  that  is  justified. 

XXXV 

This  divine  Wisdom  is  justified  of  all  her  children — 
that  is,  of  all  the  children  of  the  kingdom.     And  who  are 
these  ? 

The 

Children         We  shall  not  find  them  among  those  who  as- 
K°*^<idom    sume  that  the  Gospel  is  impracticable,  an  ideal 
Accept  the  truth  wliich   can   be    reahsed    only  in    another 
°^'^'^ '     world.     It  has  been  the  fashion  of  all  modern 
philosophy,  theological  or  secular,  to   regard  the  life  of 
the  Galilean  community  as  a  temporary  scheme  suited  to 
an  Oriental  environment,  but  contrary  to  all  natural  laws 
and  impossible  in  a  vigorous  and  wholesome  human  devel- 
opment.    It  is  held  that  the  teaching  of  Christ  illustrated 
his  divinity ;  but  that  we  are  human,  and  selfishness  is  an 
essential  attribute  of  our  human  nature,  and,  while  we  are 
to  accept  it  as  a  spiritual  truth  that  we  love  others  as  we 


AN   EVASION   OF    THE   GOSPEL.  253 

love  ourselves,  all  our  outward  systems  must  express  the 
opposite  truth.  Christianity,  in  the  absolute  sense,  is  op- 
posed to  Nature;  it  is  a  spiritual  drama,  representing  a 
supernatural  world ;  Christ,  the  central  person  in  this  rep- 
resentation, is  our  Saviour,  through  his  death  satisfying 
the  claims  of  divine  justice,  and  through  his  resurrection 
foretokening  the  change  which  shall  give  us  a  spiritual  in 
the  place  of  this  natural  body.  His  righteousness,  impos- 
sible to  us,  is — if  we  appropriate  it  through  faith  in  him — 
imputed  unto  us,  and  in  the  day  of  judgment  we  shall  be 
separated  from  all  those  who  do  not  thus  believe.  This 
is  our  salvation  —  to  be  delivered  from  the  natural  opera- 
tion, which  is  only  evil ;  and  our  faith  is,  even  in  this 
world,  a  spiritual  operation  anticipating  the  spiritual  life 
which  can  be  fully  realised  only  in  a  better  world. 

This  is  not  Christianity,  but  a  soteriological  system  of 
purely  human  construction,  an  evasion  of  the  Gospel, 
which  is  the  simple  revelation  of  a  divine  life  to  be  re- 
ceived by  us,  to  be  a  kingdom  within  us — a  kingdom 
to  be  realised  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven. 

All  who  accept  this  divine  life,  submitting  wholly  there- 
unto, are  saved  by  it,  and  more  than  saved,  because  they 
have  a  new  life,  yielding  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit.  Not  only 
is  selfishness  obliterated  and,  in  the  light  of  the  kingdom, 
seen  to  be  contrary  to  Nature,  but  the  positive  principle  of 
love  takes  its  place.  These  are  the  children  of  the  king- 
dom, whatever  may  be  their  theology,  or  whether  they 
be  within  or  outside  of  the  ecclesiastical  pale.  Offences 
and  stumbling-blocks  may  be  put  in  their  way  by  human 
sophistication,  but  they  have  the  Gospel  and  cannot  be 
confounded. 


354  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 


XXXVI 

Now,  it  is  through  the  strong  new  Ufe  of  these  chil- 
dren— those  who   have  consented   unto   His  will  —  that 
there  is  ever  the  Divine  appearing  in  the  fresh 

Hidden 

Life  of  the  triuHiphs  of  His  kingdom,  whenever  the  strong- 
Chiidren.  j^^j^g  ^f  |.|^g  worldly  system  are  overthrown. 
Hidden  hitherto  under  the  superficial  shell  of  worldliness, 
their  life  breaketh  through,  and  the  righteousness  of  the 
kingdom  taketh  the  place  of  the  vain  righteousness 
devised   by  man. 

These  children  of  the  kingdom,  who  are  indeed  to 
inherit  the  earth,  do  not  bear  upon  their  banners  the 
inscription  of  Equal  Rights,  but  of  Love  and  Good  Will. 
They  claim  no  share  of  the  vain  possessions  and  empty 
honors  of  the  world.  Nor  do  they  hold  themselves  aloof 
from  the  turmoils  of  the  world's  strife  or  the  noisome  airs 
of  its  pestilential  peace.  They  have  turned  first  one  cheek 
and  then  the  other  to  the  smiters,  hoping  by  some  way  of 
love  to  reach  their  hearts.  They  have  not  striven,  save 
as  they  have  taken  part  in  the  Father's  loving  strife  with 
men ;  nor  have  their  voices  been  heard  in  the  streets, 
crying  aloud  for  barren  justice ;  their  hope  is  only  in  fer- 
tile, abounding,  renewing  love.  Clothed  at  once  in 
earthly  and  heavenly  simplicity,  they  have  waited  upon 
the  Lord,  following  him  in  dark  ways  wherever  there  are 
burdens  to  be  borne  or  captives  to  be  released.  They 
have  sought  not  mastery  but  service — to  give  to  others 
rather  than  to  receive  gifts ;  they  have  opposed  gentleness 
to  insolence,  warming  the  cold  places  of  the  world  with 
their  hearts'  fervor,  and  covering  the  hardness  of  worldly 
systems  with  the  quick  tendrils  and  gracious  blossomings 
of  the  exhaustless  life  which  they  have  drawn  from  the 


JVHILE    MEN   SLEEP.  255 

Son  of  God.  By  this  clinging  ye  shall  know  them,  and 
not  by  their  separation  from  sinners,  like  that  of  the 
Pharisee,  in  the  solemn  isolation  of  the  temple. 

God  taketh  care  of  His  kingdom ;  and  its  children  have 
no  solicitude  for  it  or  for  themselves.  Their  life  is  hid 
with  Christ  in  God,  and  with  his  is  freely  given  wherever 
there  is  the  greatest  need,  where  the  frailty  of  human  effort 
is  most  manifest;  and  thus  it  is  that  above,  around,  and 
beneath  every  decaying  tissue  of  a  worldly  civilisation 
there  is  this  invisible  life  awaiting  the  Lord's  own  time. 

And  of  these  children  how  many  are  there  who  are 
not  yet  called  by  His  name — how  many  entangled  in  the 
worldly  mesh,  waiting  to  be  released,  Hke  insects  from 
their  larvcef  How  like  a  grave  seems  the  chrysalis  from 
which  the  butterfly  escapes  —  the  moment  of  its  complete 
death  being  the  moment  of  flight  for  the  hitherto  hidden 
life  bound  up  with  it ! 

Looking  upon  society,  the  activities  which  come  within 
tlie  small  arc  of  our  vision  show  not  the  hidden  life  which 
is  being  developed;  it  is  the  mechanical  system  that  is 
conspicuous.  We  are  involved  in  a  network  of  human 
problems — economical,  political,  educational,  and  relig- 
ious. In  times  of  revolution,  when  the  tenure  of  wealth 
and  of  physical  existence  itself  is  shaken,  we  take  note 
of  the  hidden  life  then  manifesting  itself,  like  lightning 
in  a  storm ;  and  it  is  usually  the  society  which  suffers  the 
most,  which  is  the  most  completely  upset  in  the  upheaval, 
that  is  spiritually  the  greater  gainer,  being  more  effectually 
released  from  traditional  forms  and  material  obstructions. 

God  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead  but  of  the  hving. 
Even  though  the  church  should  die,  the  kingdom  wfll 
live.  It  is  a  seed  which  hath  been  sown  and  which 
groweth  while  men  sleep.  The  Father  worketh  in  all 
humanity  and  not  in  a  chosen   part.     What  if  He  raise 


256  THE    DiyiNE    HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 

up  children  unto  His  kingdom  from  among  the  children 
of  this  world,  seeing  that  they  are  in  their  generation 
wiser  than  the  children  of  light,  in  that  they  more  readily 
throw  aside  tradition  and  show  a  quicker  and  more  vig- 
orous life  ?  What  if  He  seek  His  own  among  them  that 
are  repelled  by  the  dead  forms  and  artificial  solemnities 
which  He  Himself  abhorreth  ?  Many  there  are  who 
have  been  brought  into  the  kingdom,  being  led  in  diverse 
ways,  but  chiefly  through  the  knowledge  of  Christ,  who 
are  weary  of  worldly  maxims  and  worldly  systems,  but 
who  find  in  ecclesiastical  channels  no  way  to  an  expres- 
sion of  life,  and  whose  co-operation  the  Church  does  not 
invite  in  any  living  way.  These  would  readily  find  their 
places  in  such  a  Christian  society  as  our  Lord  established, 
one  which  recognised  no  class  distinctions,  one  in  which 
equal  love  took  the  place  of  charity,  one  in  which  there 
was  no  accommodation  to  worldly  methods — an  associ- 
ation for  the  expression  of  the  heavenly  life  upon  the 
earth.  For  such  co-operation  it  is  only  necessary  that 
faith  should  expel  practical  infidelity. 

XXXVII 

God  worketh  in  all  for  salvation,  and  especially  in  them 
that   beUeve — who   have   a  hving   faith.     The   children 
wait  upon  Him;    they  behold  His   work,  and, 
F^"^      though  they  know  not  the  way  thereof,  though 
Children,    it  hath  for   them  wonderful  surprises,  they  co- 
operate  therewith.     They   have    no    exclusive- 
ness,  they  stand  not  aloof  from  the  world,  nor  do  they 
judge  the  world;  it  is  only  love  that  is  in  their  hearts, 
and  they  follow  their  Lord  whithersoever  he  leadeth,  even 
away  from  the  temple  and  among  the   dark  mountains, 
seeking  to   find  and  take  to  their  hearts  their    shabby, 


IVATCHING    FOR    THE    BRIDEGROOM.  257 

bruised  and  captive  brethren.  They  work  and  watch  and 
pray  —  to  love  is  to  do  all  these,  and  they  expect  not 
justification  but  only  love.  It  is  always  this — love  call- 
ing unto  love.  They  do  not  shun  the  temple,  but  here 
also,  following  their  Lord,  they  seek  to  drive  from  it  the 
money-changers,  and  to  warn  men  against  the  leaven  of 
the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees.  They  would  break  up 
images,  and  restore  the  love-feasts,  and  fill  the  house  of 
God  with  children  singing  glad  hosannas.  They  have  no 
contempt  of  the  earthly  life  and  give  themselves  not  up  to 
austerities  and  sanctities  and  penances  and  mortifications. 
It  is  life  not  death  which  they  seek  —  a  larger,  freer,  fuller 
life.  And  they  ally  themselves  with  all  who  seek  to  get 
nearer  to  Nature's  heart,  knowing  that  they  who  follow 
her  living  ways  draw  nearer  to  the  Lord ;  and  they  hail 
with  delight  every  application  of  Nature's  forces  which 
promises  greater  freedom  to  men  from  their  incessant  toil, 
knowing  that,  though  for  the  moment  it  may  serve  the 
selfishness  of  the  powerful  and  seem  to  strengthen  the 
bonds  of  the  weak,  yet,  in  the  end,  it  must  serve  Love's 
eternal  purpose.  Their  watchword  is  not  that  Knowl- 
edge is  Power,  but  they  know  that  there  is  no  true  en- 
lightenment that  is  not  from  God,  and  that,  however  it 
may  for  a  time  be  associated  with  the  pride  of  human 
intellect,  it  is  more  closely  linked  with  His  loving  pur- 
pose ;  and  when  they  behold  men  drawing  nearer  together 
in  space  and  time  through  steam  and  electric  communica- 
tion, their  hearts  are  glad  within  them,  for  they  see  in  this 
not  the  immediate  result  —  the  corporate  abuse  and  the 
strengthening  of  a  selfish  despotism — but  the  preparation 
for  the  universal  brotherhood  of  God's  kingdom. 

Such  is  their  faith.  They  are  not  disturbed  by  any 
problems,  least  of  all  do  they  attempt  the  solution  of  any. 
Outside  of  harmony  with  the  Father's  will,  all  things  are 


258  THE   DIVINE    HUM/IN    FELLOIVSHIP. 

in  disorder,  and  no  philosophical  adjustment  can  bring 
them  into  agreement  with  each  other.  Out  of  the  heart 
are  the  issues  of  life.  Arrest  this  flowing  life  from  human 
hearts — leaving  them  in  all  else  unchanged  —  and  set  the 
whole  world  in  order  in  accordance  with  the  wisest  plan 
for  its  outward  perfection,  yet  would  the  first  revived  pul- 
sation bring  on  the  old  confusion.  It  is  not  a  matter  of 
arrangement,  of  environment.   Society  must  be  regenerated. 

XXXVIII 

The  children  of  the  kingdom  look  only  to  the  heart. 
Their  faith  is  not  in  reform.  Yet  they  are  not  Quietists, 
^^^  saying,  "  We  have  nought  to  do  with  all  this." 
are  not  Rather  they  have  to  do  with  all  this,  since  they 
have  to  do  with  Him  from  whom  is  all  life  and 
the  renewal  thereof.  Their  lamps  go  not  out,  for  at  any 
time  the  Bridegroom  may  appear,  and  with  the  eagerness 
of  children  they  watch  for  the  slightest  sign  of  his  coming. 
They  take  part  in  all  the  activities  of  the  world,  not  with 
reference  to  what  in  them  is  to  come  from  human  effort, 
but  with  reference  to  the  divine  purpose  to  be  manifested 
therein.  Ye  may  look  for  them  wherever  there  is  a  stir  of 
life,  a  quick  breathing,  a  new  utterance.  The  Spirit  is 
moving,  and  ye  cannot  tell  whence  it  cometh  nor  whither 
it  goeth ;  all  these  living  ways,  which  are  like  the  ways  of 
the  viewless  wind,  are  thronged  by  the  children  of  the 
New  Life.  When  the  storm  is  past,  we  ask.  How  came 
a  Washington  just  there  ?  or  a  Lincoln  just  here  ?  —  types 
of  God's  chosen  agents  a  century  apart — but  it  could  not 
have  been  otherwise. 


DIVINE    LEADING    IN    THE    IVORLD.  259 


XXXIX 

The  worldly  scheme,  in  all  its  perversion,  offers  in  its 
development   broken   types  of  the   kingdom,   and  looks 
toward  a  simulation  of  its  life.    As  we  have  seen, 
the  divine  life  can  never  be  wholly  expelled  from  simulation 


of  the 

Kinedom. 


it;  and  the  evidences  of  this  life  are  especially 
apparent  in  its  associative  activity,  though  dis- 
guised by  its  conventionalities.  In  movements  that  seem 
to  express  a  collective  human  instinct,  where  arbitrary 
and  conscious  volitions  are  held  in  suspense,  the  life 
of  a  people  is  lifted  out  of  its  frictions  and  discords  into 
a  divine  rhythm.  We  call  these  heroic  moments,  when 
self  is  forgotten,  when  all  material  possessions  count  for 
nothing,  and  life  itself  is  of  no  value  but  to  serve  a  higher 
life.  We  have  thus  an  image  of  the  ideal  association  of 
the  kingdom. 

The  artist  and  the  student,  laying  aside  all  disguises, 
confront  Nature  as  life,  and  are  caught  up  into  a  freer 
movement,  where  they  possess  not  but  are  possessed, 
where  their  activities  are  arrested  and  a  divine  influence 
enters,  where  their  voices  are  silent  and  a  deeper  voice  is 
heard.  Out  of  this  rapture,  which  hath  the  freedom  of 
the  dream,  they  call  men  to  a  higher  life,  showing  them 
some  simihtude  thereof.  It  is  a  divine  leading.  And, 
even  apart  from  such  exaltations,  and  apart  from  the 
fragments  of  rhythm  which  Art  hath  either  reclaimed  of 
an  Eden  lost  or  prophetically  caught  of  an  Eden  to 
come,  every  new  discovery  and  invention  is  a  true  bit  of 
the  kingdom,  however  misfitted  into  the  worldly  scheme. 


260  THE   Dll^lNE    HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 


XL 

The  conception  of  an  ideal  spiritual  life  is  exceedingly 
vague,  except  as  we  derive  it  directly  from  our  Lord's  un- 
folding thereof  and  from  his  own  life.     There  is 

Conception  ° 

of  the      here  no  distinction  between   the  ideal  and  the 
Ideal  Life.   ^^^^     ^^  j^^  ^^^^  ^^^^  whcrc  they  were — in  the 

entanglements  of  their  perverse  ways — so  do  all  his 
followers  at  every  step  confront  the  worldly  disorder, 
and  must  take  it  as  they  find  it,  having  faith  in  the  final 
harmony. 

The  Imagination  exhausts  its  resources  in  vain,  attempt- 
ing to  construct  this  ideal  life.  We  may  suppose  that,  in 
place  of  the  desire  for  mastery  and  for  material  posses- 
sion, the  heroism  of  love  and  faith  is  dominant,  since  our 
Lord  hath  said  that  the  meek  shall  inherit  the  earth — 
they  who  overcome  evil  with  good.  This  heroism  of 
meekness  not  only  hath  in  it  all  that  is  possible  of  human 
courage  in  the  face  of  life  and  death,  but  is  reinforced 
by  the  divine  might.  Here  is  an  army  whose  weapons 
are  drawn  from  the  armory  of  heaven.  We  may  imagine 
an  array  of  bright  angelic  forms,  supple  as  Michael's,  shin- 
ing with  the  health  of  seraphs,  from  their  radiant  brows, 
beneath  which  the  piercing  glance  of  every  eye  is  like  the 
flash  of  Ithuriel's  spear,  to  their  beautiful  feet  upon  the 
mountains — upon  the  vantage-ground  of  truth  :  and  unto 
them  truth  is  life,  and  life  is  love.  They  have  the  wisdom 
of  serpents,  the  harmlessness  of  doves,  and  the  strength  of 
God.  The  whole  race  of  men  upon  earth  becoming  such 
as  these,  we  may  picture  to  ourselves  a  society  in  which 
the  natural  tradition  of  impulse  and  knowledge  is  perfect 
and  sufficient;  a  society  without  a  history  and  without  mon- 
uments, and  whose  intellectual  development  is  in  no  way 


AN   IDEAL    yiElV.  261 

separate  from  its  forward-looking  life ;  a  society  in  which 
there  is  a  common  bond  of  love  uniting  all  hearts  and  all 
activities,  so  holding  to  the  immediate  contact  with  Nature 
that  there  is  no  monstrous  aggregation  of  human  life  in 
cities;  a  society  without  conventional  distinctions,  all  labor- 
ing alike  and  together  as  one  family,  and  in  which,  as  there 
would  be  no  drudgery,  so,  on  the  other  hand,  there  would 
be  no  artificial  amusement — the  sharp  distinction  between 
work  and  play  no  longer  holding ;  a  society  without  a 
government  for  the  administration  of  justice,  since  the 
very  notion  of  justice  arises  only  from  injustice, — without 
ethical  regulation,  the  spontaneous  spiritual  impulse  hav- 
ing taken  the  place  of  binding  duty, —  without  charity, 
since  love  has  removed  the  occasion  for  its  exercise, — with- 
out polish,  since  in  the  alchemy  of  this  flowing  life  there 
is  nothing  hard  enough  to  take  it, — without  refinement, 
save  as  the  fire  of  life  refineth, —  without  canons  of  taste 
or  rules  of  disciphne,  since  an  obligation  from  within 
holds,  in  consistency  with  perfect  freedom,  all  life  to  the 
harmony  of  spiritual  law  ;  a  society  having  in  its  construc- 
tions and  interpretations  the  original  endowment  of  divi- 
nation, through  the  divine  wisdom  informing  the  human, 
so  that  its  progress  in  art  and  kno^vledge  is  rapid  beyond 
our  ability  to  conceive  by  comparison  with  the  achieve- 
ments of  what  we  know  as  civilisation. 

In  some  such  large  lines  do  we  imagine  the  life  of  the 
kingdom,  following  the  intimations  of  our  Lord  and  the 
suggestions  of  his  life.  But  the  spiritual  life  is  so  far 
hidden,  as  to  the  possibihties  of  its  associative  develop- 
ment, that  the  delineation  seems  unreal  and  remote  as 
that  of  some  unearthly  continent.  No  divine  revelation 
is  given  us  ever,  save  touching  a  point  already  reached  — 
there  is  no  lifting  of  ulterior  veils,  excepting  the  unveiling 
of  an  endless  life  through  our  Lord's  resurrection. 
20 


262  THE   DiyiNE   HUMAN    FELLOfVSHIP. 

There  be  those  who  would  fain  beUeve  that  this  king- 
dom is  indeed  to  be  referred  to  an  unearthly  continent, 
who  would  not  that  the  heavenly  should  be  confounded 
with  the  earthly,  save  by  some  compromise  with  or  ac- 
commodation to  worldhness.  But  our  Lord  brings  it 
near,  giving  it  a  lodgment  in  our  hearts,  neither  suggest- 
ing nor  suffering  a  compromise.  In  every  unfolding  of 
the  heavenly  life,  he  brings  it  side  by  side  with  the 
worldly,  always  maintaining  as  essential,  not  its  exclusive- 
ness  or  isolation,  but  its  ideal  integrity.  What  seems  unto 
man  so  impracticable — as  regeneration  seemed  unto 
Nicodemus — he  taught  as  easy.  Difficulty  is  a  character- 
istic of  the  worldly  scheme.  Here  is  the  field  of  our 
Faith — to  comprehend  this  ease. 

When,  therefore,  we  regard  the  magnitude  of  the 
worldly  scheme,  we,  in  the  exercise  of  this  faith,  and 
knowing  that  unto  God  nothing  is  difficult,  bear  witness 
to  the  heavenly  as  something  assured,  because  it  is  of 
Him.  If  we  consider  the  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom  to  be 
impracticable,  or  as  something  which  must  be  modified  to 
adapt  it  to  our  civilisation  before  it  can  have  an  earthly 
reality,  we  have  not  faith. 


XLI 

It  is  only  in  the  heart  which  hath  in  it  the  vital  prin- 
ciple of  the  kingdom,  growing  into  an  outward  represen- 
^  ,    ,      tation  thereof,    that   there   can   be  the   further 

Only  by 

Entering    development,  through  the  Spirit,  of  truth  beyond 

Fe"iioJship  that  distinctly  revealed  by  our  Lord.     And  only 

can  we     jn  the  association  of  all  as  one  in  this  higher  life 

Comprehend  ,  ,  ^  ,,  ,      .  .   .  -i  m-   ■ 

its  can  there  be  a  full  revelation  of  its  possibilities 
Development.  —  ^  divinc  rcvclation,  since  the  life  itself  is  a 
divine  communication.     It  is  not  a  communication  which 


THE  POIVER    OF  ASSOCIATION.  263 

destroys  individuality,  but  which  intensifies  and  exalts  it. 
The  fulness  of  the  individual  life  is  the  result  of  the 
complete  realisation  of  the  heavenly  life  associatively. 
In  the  largest  sense  of  the  word  there  can  be  no  indi- 
vidual salvation. 

The  spiritual  life  is  developed  according  to  natural  laws. 
In  the  worldly  scheme  we  note  the  operation  of  these  laws, 
modified  by  the  hardness  of  human  hearts  resisting  the 
divine  Spirit.  We  recognise  the  force  here  of  association, 
even  of  a  discordant  association,  so  that  all  humanity  is 
involved  in  the  degeneration.  Now  if  a  scheme  involving 
discordant  elements  and  opposed  moreover  to  the  divine 
will  thus  illustrates  the  strength  of  association,  so  that  by 
a  natural  necessity  evil  becomes  the  common  heritage  of 
mankind,  the  perversion  touching  all  hearts,  with  that 
marvellous  communicability  which  there  is  in  all  disease, 
how  much  more  would  we  expect  that  the  leaven  of  the 
kingdom,  inducing  the  spirit  of  harmony  and  of  assent 
to  the  divine  will,  should  include  all  humanity — that  the 
influence  leading  in  the  way  of  life  should  lead  all  as  one 
— that  being  moreover  the  easier  way:  humanity  in  this 
view  including  all  who  have  ever  lived, — and  we  know 
not  what  other  beings  may  be  conjoined  with  it  in  its 
restoration,  any  more  than  we  know  what  others  may 
have  been  associated  with  its  error, — for  association  is 
not  only  of  the  visible  but  of  the  invisible. 

XLII 

We  see  only  too  clearly  the  strength  of  the  worldly 
scheme.  The  life  of  God  in  unwilling  hearts  is  turned 
awry.  Any  noble  aspiration,  the  moment  it  has  an  out- 
ward social  expression,  is,  in  like  manner,  distorted  by 
inveterate   prejudices  and  animosities.     The   conceptions 


264  THE   DIVINE   HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 

of  God  generally  entertained  would  appear  to  be  blas- 
phemous, save  as  we  see  that  they  correspond  to  mis- 
-Phe       conceptions   of  all   life.     Indeed  the  terms   in 
Mystery    -whicli  tlic  divine  traits  are  expressed  are  bor- 
Ungodii-    rowed  from  those  expressing  the  worldly  idea 
ness.       Q^  human   perfection  —  such   terms   as   are  en- 
tirely  notional  and   unvital   and  are  not  even  suggested 
in   Nature  or  in  Christ.     The   things  which  He  abhors 
are   represented   as   especially   pleasing   in    His    sight  — 
that  from  which  He  would  deliver  us  as  that  which  He 
desires  in  us.    The  outward  structure  of  faith,  as  eccle- 
siastically developed,  tends   to   fix   these   misconceptions 
unalterably  in  the  human  mind ;  and  it  is  especially  these, 
as  being  definite  conceptions,  that  are  taught  first  of  all  to 
the  children. 

Neither  theology  nor  physical  science  has  exaggerated 
the  depravity  of  man,  which  is  his  heritage  from  genera- 
tion to  generation  —  not  a  depravity  existing  in  the  child's 
heart,  which  in  its  softness  and  its  fresh  impulses  is  the 
true  image  of  the  kingdom  —  but  one  of  inherited  apti- 
tudes, that  soon  find  expression  through  their  correspond- 
ences with  the  worldly  system,  while  his  natural  impulses 
are  suppressed.  The  training  of  the  child  is  relentlessly 
directed  toward  this  suppression.  It  is  not  simply  that 
his  attention  is  fixed  upon  external  possessions  and  refine- 
ments as  especially  important  and  that  the  prizes  of  the 
world  are  set  before  him  for  the  incitement  of  all  his 
youthful  ardors,  but  that,  even  in  the  selection  of  his 
childish  playmates,  he  is  taught  directly  or  indirectly  that 
he  is  better  than  others,  or,  if  he  be  a  child  of  the  poor,  is 
made  in  his  first  years  to  feel  the  scorn  of  those  who  shun 
him  as  if  he  were  an  outcast;  so  that  the  children  are 
divided  into  opposite  camps,  with  that  strife  in  their 
tender  hearts  which  will  in  their  maturer  years  develop. 


THE    STRENGTH   OF    IVORLDLINESS.  265 

on  the  one  hand,  into  overmastering  pride,  extortion  and 
Pharisaism,  and,  on  the  other,  into  envy,  hatred  and  rude 
vengeance;  though,  meanwhile,  many  will  have  been 
transformed  from  the  weaker  to  the  stronger  camp,  help- 
ing to  brutahse  the  latter  and  to  intensify  its  cruelties.  To 
the  little  ones  this  exclusiveness  is  taught  as  one  of  the 
proprieties  of  life  —  it  leads  to  its  monstrous  tragedies. 
The  education  of  youth  is  through  a  system  which  exag- 
gerates the  competitive  strife  for  worldly  prizes.  The 
political  and  industrial  systems  afford  fields  for  the  practi- 
cal application  of  this  education,  and  for  the  distribution 
of  the  prizes.  Such  vitality  as  is  not  exhausted  in  these 
competitions  is  devoted  to  what  are  called  social  duties 
and,  with  a  finer  sarcasm,  social  pleasures.  Included 
among  the  "  duties "  is  the  amelioration  of  evils  created 
by  the  system. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  consider  the  horde  of  parasites 
developed  by  the  system.  It  is  sufficiently  apparent  not 
only  that  w^orldliness  is  strong,  but  that  its  strength  is  that 
of  an  association  in  which,  willingly  or  unwillingly,  all 
men  are  partners — nay,  in  which  God  is  Himself  made  a 
participant,  since  it  is  His  strength  in  us  and  in  Nature 
that  is  abused  therein.  It  maybe  —  and,  if,  beneath  its 
diversity,  all  life  is  one,  it  must  be  —  that  all  sentient  life 
in  the  universe  is  involved  in  this  perversion.  What  we 
call  worldliness  may  indeed  be  only  a  fragment  of  all- 
worldliness.  It  is  an  overwhelming  wave,  whose  begin- 
ning and  whose  extent  is  beyond  the  range  of  our 
knowledge  or  of  our  judgment.  It  is  the  mystery  of 
ungodliness ! 


266  THE   DIVINE   HUMAN   FELLOWSHIP. 


XLIII 

But  alongside  of  this   scheme,   we   spiritually  discern 

the  life  of  the  kingdom,  not  as  militant,  but  as  triumphant 

— triumphant  because  it  is  not  militant;  because 

Mystery  of  it  comcth  HOt  by  obscrvation ;  because  its  faith 

is  not  in  the  strife  against  worldliness  or  in  an 

amelioration  thereof,  or  in  any  attempts  to  reform  it,  but 

only  in  the  divine  purpose  which  chooseth  the  weak  things 

and  the  foolishness  of  the  world  to  confound  the  wise  and 

mighty,  its  treasures  of  truth  being  confided  not  unto  the 

wise  and  prudent,  but  unto  babes  and  sucklings. 

Neither  do  the  children  of  the  kingdom  condemn  this 
worldliness,  any  more  than  did  their  Lord;  and  indeed 
which  of  them  would  cast  the  first  stone,  as  being  with- 
out sin  ? 

Nevertheless  the  worldly  scheme  cometh  ever  to  judg- 
ment in  the  presence  of  the  kingdom  —  in  the  awful 
presence  of  the  Spirit  of  Love;  and  it  is  condemned 
already.  To  the  vision  of  Faith  the  kingdom  is  triumph- 
ant and  worldliness  a  mask,  an  illusion,  which,  though  it 
last  a  million  years,  is  as  nothing  unto  the  strength  of  the 
Eternal  Love  that  encompasses  it  round  about  and  oper- 
ates upon  all  hearts  beneath  its  hollowness,  as  behind  a 
thin  veil  incapable  of  obscuring  the  divine  glory.  How 
great  is  the  mystery  of  godliness  ! 

XLIV 

The  kingdom  cometh — almost  imperceptibly,  its  oper- 
ations are  so  hidden  from  our  sight ;  and  it  cometh  to  all. 
It  is  the  noiseless  stream  below  the  troubled  surface  of  the 
opposing  worldly  current.    In  the  association  of  its  hidden 


THE   EVERLASTING    COVENANT.  267 

life  it  embraces  all  humanity — it  is  the  everlastingly  faith- 
ful covenant  with  every  living  creature.  But  there  is 
nothing  hidden  that  shall  not  be  made  known. 

.        Conclusion. 

This  growth  of  the  seed,  which  goeth  on  while 
men  sleep,  is  toward  a  glorious  harvest  in  the  light.  In 
the  field  of  each  human  heart  are  the  wheat  and  also  the 
tares.  In  them  that  consent  unto  the  divine  will  there 
is — even  though  the  growth  of  wheat  be  an  hundred- 
fold—  some  chaff  and  straw  for  the  consuming  fire.  Re- 
generation is  the  beginning  of  a  new  life  in  the  midst 
of  worldly  entanglements  and  distractions,  even  as  the 
worldly  life  kicketh  against  the  pricks  of  the  quickening 
Spirit.  As  the  strife  of  the  worldly  against  the  heavenly 
grows  less  and  less,  because  of  the  living  witnesses  to  this 
quickening  love,  because  of  the  leaven  of  the  kingdom  in 
the  world,  so  do  the  regenerate  reach  a  fuller  and  freer 
life  through  the  reconciliation  of  the  world  unto  God,  and 
they  cannot  themselves  be  wholly  delivered  save  by  a 
universal  deliverance.  Even  the  innumerable  throng  of 
witnesses  have  for  themselves  a  direct  and  vital  interest  in 
the  glorious  issue. 


The  children  hold  fast  to  the  everlasting  fountain  of 
life ;  but  it  is  theirs  only  as  it  springs  up  spontaneously  in 
their  own  hearts,  and  no  sooner  do  they  feel  its  first  glad 
impulse  than  each  one  seeks  to  find  his  brother  —  to  real- 
ise the  community  of  the  life,  which  is  then  seen  to  be  the 
only  divine  communion.  The  true  freedom  of  the  children 
is  the  liberty  of  the  heart  seeking  not  its  own  but  another's 
good ;  and  it  consists  with  that  sublime  faith  which  fears 
no  evil  from  any  contact,  since  whatever  the  divine  life 
thus  humanly  embodied  touches  is  spellbound  of  Love : 
the  peril  becomes  harmless ;  violence  is  subdued  ;  hatred 


268  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 

is  disarmed ;  death  itself  becomes  stingless.  What  strange 
incongruities  seem  to  enter  the  field  of  this  manifestation ! 
It  is  the  only  free  life,  yet  is  it  alone  truly  within  re- 
straint—  as  is  shown  in  the  primitive  Christian  develop- 
ment— decent,  and  modest,  and  chaste,  even  submitting 
to  bonds,  lest  offence  be  given,  and  soliciting  command- 
ment. Because  of  its  inward  delight  in  loving,  it  alone 
can  set  the  boundaries  of  love,  keeping  its  strong  current 
safe  and  wholesome,  sincere  and  guileless.  Out  of  its 
liberty  is  born  duty,  out  of  its  ease  the  readiness  to  take 
all  burdens.  It  inherits  earth  and  heaven — yet  from 
both  it  flies  that  it  may  abide  with  grief.  Having  ban- 
ished the  spirit  of  strife,  yet  it  forthwith  enters  into  num- 
berless strivings — strong  without  tension,  resolving  all 
hardness.  Joy  bows  its  head,  and  in  the  shining  radiance 
the  eyelids  droop,  not  from  excess  of  light,  but  from  sym- 
pathy with  them  that  are  in  dark  places.  The  wings  on 
which  it  might  fly  to  mountain  heights  are  folded  in  the 
gruesome  valleys.  It  is  the  habit  of  the  divine  life  to 
thus  deny  its  essential  attributes  —  to  suffer  everything 
because  it  is  the  source  of  all  joy,  and  because  it  embraceth 
all  good  to  consort  with  all  evil ;  and  they  that  accept 
this  life  take  also  this  habit,  following  their  Lord. 

Their  submissions  are  not  accommodations.  The  sign 
of  the  mastery  of  the  divine  life  in  us  is  the  readiness  to 
serve.  Fully  receiving  this  life  we  pass  under  all  yokes, 
without  subjugation.  We  are  still  free,  taking  upon  us  the 
yoke  that  is  easy ;  and  all  burdens  are  light.  So  long  as 
we  have  this  life,  whose  outward  embodiment  is  a  loving 
and  catholic  fellowship — whatever  mistakes  we  may  make 
in  action  or  in  belief ;  howsoever  we  may  deny  our  very 
freedom,  being  perhaps  in  many  ways  even  misled  in  our 
self-abnegations,  taking  to  ourselves  much  needless  travail 
and  disquietude  ;   whatever  of  our  perverse  nature  may 


LOVE    THE    FULFILLING   OF    THE   LA  IV.        269 

find  expression  in  our  zeal — yet,  denying  not  the  Spirit 
of  Love,  we  shall  in  due  time  be  led  into  the  true  way. 
It  is  only  when  we  deny  this  Spirit  that  we  go  fatally 
astray,  and  all  contacts  corrupt,  all  submissions  become 
compromises,  and  all  service  loses  its  divine  sweetness. 
Love,  and  only  Love,  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  Law. 

The  last  vv'ord  of  the  Christ  is  that  we  love  one  another; 
and  out  of  this  divine  human  fellowship  must  be  devel- 
oped the  ultimate  Gospel  of  truth.  Of  such  a  Gospel  we 
have  the  brightest  glimpse  in  the  record  of  early  Chris- 
tianity. The  world  is  awaiting  a  new  Pentecost.  But 
what  embodiment  in  human  economies  this  new  spiritual 
revival  Avill  take,  we  know  not ;  nor  can  we  be  sure  that 
its  bright  light  may  not  again  suffer  eclipse.  We  only 
know  that  so  long  as  its  impulse  is  wholly  of  divine  quick- 
ening, love  will  take  the  place  of  self-seeking  and  will 
build  up  human  brotherhood  ;  and  the  shaping  of  this 
life  will  be  the  expression  of  some  utterly  new  divine 
delight  in  the  free  play  of  emotional  activities.  There 
may  be  lapses;  human  aspiration  may  again  suffer  the 
mortal  disease  of  ambition,  and  the  eager,  joyous  posses- 
sion of  the  earth  may  again  take  on  the  sickly  hue  of  self- 
ishness, the  tender  mastery  of  love  become  again  the  love 
of  mastery ;  but  this  hardening  unto  death  is  also  a  part 
of  the  divine  plan — the  winter  of  the  heart  covering  the 
vitalities  of  springtime.  Every  new  cycle  will  more  nearly 
approach  the  earthly  realisation  of  the  heavenly  harmony. 

When  our  interpretation  attempts  the  anticipation  of 
truth  beyond  a  life  already  lived,  it  is  vague  and  worthless ; 
but,  in  the  cycle  of  Christian  life  now  nearly  completed, 
certain  principles  of  the  Gospel  have  been  clearly  illustrated 
and  reinforced.  One  of  the  most  important  of  these  is 
that  the  meek  shall  inherit  the  earth.  Christianity  dis- 
placed  Paganism  without  a  struggle.     No  life  involves 


270  THE    DIVINE    HUMAN   FELLOIVSHIP. 

antagonism  until  its  faith  in  the  divine  strength  is  given 
over;  then  in  its  mortal  weakness  it  becomes  gladiatorial. 
The  phrase  "  Muscular  Christianity,"  instead  of  simply- 
indicating  a  tonic  and  wholesome  activity,  is  apt  to  be 
used  to  express  the  pride  of  strenuous  will  and  self-de- 
pendence. Neither  this  attitude  of  modem  Protestantism 
nor  its  extreme  individualism  characterised  the  period  of 
greatest  spiritual  vitality — they  are  rather  symptoms  of 
mortal  failure.  On  the  other  hand  neither  wholesome 
activity  nor  the  repose  of  a  vital  faith  can  be  looked  for 
through  supine  submission  to  ecclesiastical  authority. 
This  is  but  another  symptom  of  mortal  degeneration. 

The  children  of  the  kingdom  are  the  friends  of  God, 
building  with  Him  they  know  not  clearly  what.  They 
have  never  known.  Every  unfolding  of  the  divine  life  in 
them — in  the  shapings  of  their  own  life — is  a  surprise. 
When  they  would  comfortably  abide  in  the  structures  they 
have  shaped  under  tlie  impulses  of  fresh  inspiration,  then 
there  always  comes  that  other  surprise,  as  of  sad  autumn 
abruptly  following  upon  summer,  the  deep  green  changing 
to  the  almost  taunting  brightness  of  decay — the  surprise 
of  corruption,  so  necessary  to  any  new  surprise  of  life. 
When  the  sun  flames  into  a  sudden  glory  before  his  set- 
ting, there  is  a  moment  of  sadness,  and  then  we  seem  to 
hear  a  voice,  saying.  He  shall  so  come  in  like  manner  as 
ye  have  seen  him  go.  When  the  forms  of  life  with  which 
they  have  fondly  hngered  break  up  and  disappear,  the 
children  take  Nature  at  her  own  bright  meaning.  Their 
regrets  dissolve  into  the  raptures  of  coming  Ufe — they 
are  the  children  of  the  Resurrection. 

FINIS. 


BEN-HUR:  A  TALE  OF  THE  CHRIST. 

By  Lew.  Wallace.     New  Edition,     pp.  552.     16mo, 

Cloth,  §1  50. 


Anything  so  startling,  new,  and  distinctive  as  the  leading  feature  of 
this  romance  does  not  often  appear  in  works  of  fiction.  .  .  .  Some  of  Mr. 
Wallace's  writing  is  remarkable  for  its  pathetic  eloquence.  The  scenes 
described  in  the  New  Testament  are  rewritten  with  tlie  power  and  skill  of 
an  accomplished  master  of  style. — N.  Y.  Times. 

Its  real  basis  is  a  description  of  the  life  of  the  Jews  and  Romans  at  the 
beginning  of  the  Christian  era,  and  this  is  botii  forcible  and  brilHant.  .  .  . 
We  are  carried  througli  a  surprising  variety  of  scenes ;  we  witness  a  sea- 
figlit,  a  chariot-race,  the  internal  economy  of  a  Roman  galley,  domestic  in- 
teriors at  Anlioch,  at  Jerusalem,  and  among  the  tribes  of  the  desert;  pal- 
aces, prisons,  the  haunts  of  dissipated  Roman  youth,  the  houses  of  pious 
families  of  Israel.  There  is  plenty  of  exciting  incident ;  everything  is  ani- 
mated, vivid,  and  glowing. — K  Y.  Tribune. 

From  the  opening  of  the  volume  to  the  very  close  the  reader's  interest 
will  be  kept  at  the  highest  pitch,  and  the  novel  will  be  pronounced  by  all 
one  of  the  greatest  novels  of  the  day. — Boston  Post. 

It  is  full  of  poetic  beauty,  as  though  born  of  an  Eastern  sage,  and  there 
is  sufficient  of  Oriental  customs,  geography,  nomenclature,  etc.,  to  greatly 
strengthen  the  semblance. — Boston  Commonwealth. 

"Ben-Hur"  is  interesting,  and  its  characterization  is  fine  and  strong. 
Meanwhile  it  evinces  careful  study  of  the  period  in  wliich  the  scene  is  laid, 
and  will  help  those  who  read  it  with  reasonable  attention  to  realize  the 
nature  and  conditions  of  Hebrew  life  in  Jerusalem  and  Roman  life  at 
Antioch  at  the  time  of  our  Saviour's  advent. — Examiner,  N.  Y. 

It  is  really  Scripture  history  of  Christ's  time  clothed  gracefully  and  deli- 
cately in  the  flowing  and  loose  drapery  of  modern  fiction.  .  .  .  Few  late 
works  of  fiction  excel  it  in  genuine  ability  and  interest. — K.  Y.  Oraphic. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  and  delightful  books.  It  is  as  real  and 
warm  as  life  itself,  and  as  attractive  as  the  grandest  and  most  heroic  chap- 
ters of  history. — Lidianapolis  Journal. 

The  book  is  one  of  unquestionable  power,  and  will  be  read  with  un- 
wonted interest  by  many  readers  who  are  weary  of  the  conventional  novel 
and  romance. — Boston  Journal. 


Published  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  New  York. 

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THE  BOYHOOD  OF  CHRIST. 

By  Lew.  Wallace,  Author  of  "  Ben-Hur,"  &c.  14  Full- 
page  Engravings  on  Plate  Paper.  4to,  Ornamental 
Leather  Covers,  |3  50.     {In  a  Hox.) 


The  story  is  told  by  an  earnest,  loving  reader  of  the  Gospels,  and 
the  effort  to  present  the  actual  life  of  Christ  in  his  youth  is  rever- 
ent, judicious,  and  full  of  interest. — Christian  Union,  N.  Y. 

This  sumptuous  work  is  superlative  In  more  respects  than  one.  .  .  . 
It  is  such  a  bit  of  fine  and  fluent  story-telling  as  we  are  sure  no  one 
could  write  but  the  author  of  "  Ben-Hur."  It  is  the  boy  Christ  who 
figures  in  these  pages,  none  other. — PhUadclplda  Press. 

A  most  interesting  and  pleasant  book  for  old  and  young  alike,  and 
will  be  a  permanent  companion  to  "  Ben-Hur  " — Lutheran  Observer, 
Philadelphia. 

A  magnificent  book.  .  .  .  The  subject  is  treated  in  that  reverent 
yet  familiar  narrative  style  which  has  made  General  Wallace  so  well 
known  and  liked,  and  the  illustrations  are  worthy  of  the  peculiar 
grandeur  of  the  subject.  The  whole  forms  a  work  of  art  which  is 
unique  even  among  the  many  fine  productions  of  the  modern  press. 
— St.  Louis  Republic. 

The  style  of  the  work  is  simple  and  graceful,  the  spirit  of  it  is 
reverent  and  helpful,  and  it  impresses  forcibly  the  reality  of  the  tie 
of  humanity  between  Jesus  and  ourselves,  and  there  are  many  and 
very  fine  illustrations. — The  Congregationalist,  Boston. 

What  history,  art,  and  travel  may  contribute  to  help  clear  and 
vivid  portraiture  and  description  is  familiar  to  the  author,  and  he 
has  all  the  sympathetic  and  tender  imagination  to  give  them  power. 
— Boston  Globe. 

A  real  spirit  of  reverence  pervades  the  narrative,  and  extends  from 
the  narrator  throughout  his  young  audience.  .  .  .The  publication  is 
very  beautiful. — Christian  Advocate,  N.  Y. 


Published  by  HARPER   &   BROTHERS,  New  York. 

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THE  LAND  AND  THE  BOOK. 

By  William  M.  Thomson,  D.D.,  Forty-five  Years  a  Mis- 
sionary in  Syria  and  Palestine.  In  Three  Volnmes, 
Square  8vo,  Ornamental  Cloth.  Price  per  Volume, 
|G  00;  Sheep,  ^1  00;  Half  Morocco,  %8  50;  Full  Mo- 
rocco, Gilt  Edges,  $10  00. 

Yol.  I.  Southern  Palestine  and  Jerusalem.  140  Illus- 
tratious  and  Maps. 

Vol.  II.  Central  Palestine  and  Phcenicia.  130  Illustra- 
tions and  Maps. 

Vol.  III.  Lebanon,  Damascus,  and  Beyond  Jordan.  147 
Illustrations  and  Maps. 

To  forty-five  years'  life  and  study  on  the  soil  of  Palestine,  the  author 
adds  ample  learning  and  the  fruit  of  the  latest  topographical  surveys  and 
lin«'uistie  researches.  ...  A  standard  authority,  if  not  a  classic. —  Critic, 
N.Y. 

The  work  is  of  the  highest  value.— C/iM?-c/t  Press,  N.Y. 

This  book  is  one  which  every  earnest  reader  of  the  Bible  should  have 
in  his  library;  for  we  believe  it  is  the  best  account  of  the  region  at  pres- 
ent accessible  to  American  veadcrs.  —  C/i rtstiaii  Advocate,  Chicago. 

The  most  exhaustive,  the  most  faithful,  and  the  most  graphic  account 
of  the  Holy  Land  that  has  ever  been  written.— ^Vawrfarrf,  Chicago. 

The  autiior  has  treated  his  subject  so  graphically  as  to  invest  it  with 
extraordinarv  attractions. — Lutheran  Observer,  Philadelphia. 

The  three  volumes  form  a  geographical,  historical,  scientific,  and  script- 
ural encyclopi\;dia  of  Palestine  "and  the  adjoining  countries.— Zio;t'si:rer- 
ald,  Boston. 

A  colossal  achievement,  and  one  creditable  alike  to  author  and  to  pub- 
lisher.— Interior,  Chicago. 

A  superb  and  most  valuable  volume. — Christian  ylfZyocate,  Cincinnati. 

The  reader  feels  as  if  the  author  were  indeed  at  his  elbow,  and  as  if  he 
himself  really  stands  on  the  sacred  soil  of  distant  Palestine.- 6'.  S.  Times, 
Philadelphia. 

One  of  the  noblest  works  illustrative  of  sacred  things  which  any  man 
has  been  permitted  to  produce.  .  .  .  The  public  is  to  be  congratulated  that 
this  admirable  work  is  now  complete,  and  that  it  is  a  standard  of  excel- 
lence in  all  respects. — Christian  Advocate,  N.Y, 

This  must  take  the  place  of  all  other  works  for  completeness,  accuracy, 
and  beauty.  ...  It  will  be,  as  it  deserves,  an  authoritative  standard  at  all 
times  of  the  countries  of  which  it  treats. —  Christian  at  Work,  N.Y. 

Here,  as  before,  we  have  that  accurate  sketching  of  sacred  places  which 
can  only  come  from  personal  observation,  and  which,  with  the  help  of  the 
admirable  illustrations,  brings  every  scene  distinctly  before  the  eye.— 
The  EvaiKjclist,  N.Y. 

The  most  complete,  accurate,  and  interesting  illustration  of  the  land 
of  the  Bible,  and  of  the  Bible  itself,  that  has  been  produced.— 06seri'«-,  N.Y. 


Published  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  New  York. 

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JESUS  CHRIST  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT. 

JESUS  CHRIST  IX  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT ;  or,  The 
Great  Argument.  By  W.  H.  Thomson,  M.A.,  M.D.,  Pro- 
fessor of  Materia  Medica  and  Therapeutics,  Medical  Depart- 
ment University  of  New  York.  Pages  viii.,  472.  Crown 
8vo,  Cloth,  $2  00. 

The  book  is  worthy  in  every  way  of  careful  reading,  and  we  trust  it 
will  do  mueli  to  confirm  tlie  faith  of  wavering  Christians,  and  show  tlio 
"internal  critics"  that  men  outside  the  pulpit  see  the  folly  of  their  as- 
saults on  God's  Word  just  as  plainly  as  tliose  who  preach  the  whole 
Bible's  simple  truth  to  sinners. —  Christian IntelUge7ice)\}s .  Y. 

The  argument  of  the  author  is  masterly,  grand,  unanswerable.  It  should 
be  carefully  studied  by  all  who  wish  to  have  an  intelligent  understanding 
of  the  fundamental  truths  of  the  Word  of  God. — Interior,  Chicago. 

Dr.  Thomson's  special  qualifications  for  the  task  lie  in  his  familiarity 
with  Oriental,  Arabic,  and  Jewish  habits  of  thought  and  expression,  and 
with  the  scenery  and  modes  of  life  of  those  lands  where  the  Bible  writings 
originated,  while  his  own  scientific  training  fits  him  for  exactness  of  reason- 
ing. His  argument  brings  out  very  clearly  the  remarkable  special  fulfil- 
ments of  the  prophecies  of  Christ  in  the  Old  Testament,  but  he  does  not 
lay  great  stress  on  them,  for  the  wise  reason  that  such  a  series  of  fulfil- 
ments would  not  alone  carry  conviction.  He  finds  a  higher  and  more 
philosophical  ground  in  the  remarkable  unlikeness  of  the  prophecies  to  the 
human  opinions  and  ideals  of  the  time,  and  to  tiieir  unmistakable  conform- 
ity to  the  intent  of  the  Christian  Gospel  itself. — iV.  Y.  Times. 

A  book  which  can  be  reconmiended  to  the  thoughtful  students  of  the 
life  of  our  Lord  as  related  to  Old  Testament  prophecy.  It  is  fresh,  stimu- 
lating, and  eminently  readable.  Dr.  Thomson's  style  is  stirring  and  ag- 
gressive.— Sunday  School  Times,  Philadelphia. 

In  respect  to  both  the  fulness  of  the  proofs  adduced  and  to  the  forms 
in  wliich  they  are  presented,  it  excels  any  that  we  have  seen  elsewhere. — 
Methodist  Quarterh/  Review,  N.  Y. 

We  have  read  this  book  from  beginning  to  end.  In  fact  it  goes  witli- 
out  saying  that  this  is  so  to  any  reader  who  will  get  ten  pages  into  it.  It 
is  impossible  to  lay  it  down.  .  .  .  It  is  so  clear,  so  connected,  so  cogent  in 
its  reasoning,  that  one  feels  the  same  delight  as  in  listening  to  a  great 
advocate  arguing  a  point  of  law  before  able  judges.  .  .  .  We  commend 
this  book  to  all  our  readers,  and  more  especially  to  the  clergy. — Church- 
man, N.  Y. 

The  work  is  scholarly  and  thoughtful,  and  will  broaden  the  view  of 
Christianity  and  strengthen  its  claims.  Biblical  literature  by  it  has  gained 
another  work  of  needed  spirit  and  character. — Boston  Globe. 


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GOD   IN   HIS   WORLD 

An  Interpretation.     Book  I.  From  the  Beginning.     Book  II.  The  In- 
carnation.    Book  III.  The  Divine-Human  Fellowship.     Post 
8vo,    Cloth,  Uncut   Edges  and  Gilt   Top,  $i  25; 
in  White  and  Gold  Binding,  $2  00. 


It  is  inspired,  and  is  to  become  an  inspired  classic. — Edmund  C.  Stedman. 

The  whole  tone  of  the  book,  the  spiritual  cheer  of  it,  was  singularly  refresh- 
ing and  wholesome  to  me.  It  cannot  fail  to  make  better  men  of  those  who  read 
it. — J.  R.  Lowell. 

It  is  surely  one  of  the  most  vital  books  of  our  age. — Henry  van  Dyke. 

Mr.  Alden  has  uttered  a  wonderful  message  to  men,  to  this  people,  to  this  age, 
to  the  Church.  .  .  .  Oracular,  prophetic,  serene,  penetrating,  abounding  in  the 
poetry  of  genius,  wonderful  in  style,  sweet  and  high  in  spirit  ;  something  of  Emer- 
son, something  of  Swedenborg,  something  of  the  mystic  and  Quaker,  something 
of  the  iconoclast,  and  a  good  deal  of  St.  John. — Rt.  Rev.  F.  D.  Huntington. 

It  is  genuine,  penetrating,  thoroughly  Christian,  a  sure  aim  at  a  fixed  target, 
only  so  far  destructive  as  at  the  same  instant  constructive,  a  gem  in  point  of  liter- 
ary expression,  and  a  light  though  firm  brush  over  all  history  and  literature,  to 
bring  together  just  what  is  needed  for  vivid  illustration.  .  .  .  One  of  the  most 
notable  contributions  of  the  century  to  religious  thought. — Professor  A.  L.  Perry. 

There  are  many  pages  to  which  I  shall  go  back  as  to  friends  and  teachers. 
The  two  (Treat  things  in  which  one's  soul  finds  more  and  more  delight — the  way  in 
which  faith  lives,  and  the  way  in  which  the  whole  living  world  is  one — come  to 
me  with  great  force  and  beauty  as  I  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  the  thought. — 
Rt.  Rev.  Phillips  Brooks. 

It  is  a  wise  and  a  fundamental  book,  one  which  every  one  who  once  begins  to 
read  will  come  to  again  and  again. — Chas.  Nordhoff. 

We  perceive  in  his  book  more  than  a  philosophy  of  religion  ;  we  perceive  a 
true,  real,  noble  expression  of  religion— one  which  is  at  once  mystical  and  rational, 
vital  and  philosophical  ;  an  expression  such  as  this  age  needs,  and  no  other  age 
than  this  could  have  produced.  And  we  heartily  commend  to  a  further  and  fuller 
fellowship  with  our  author  men  whose  religion  is  larger  than  their  theology— and 
that  is,  than  their  science  of  religion — as  a  writer  who  will  be  sure  to  feed  their 
spirits,  quicken  their  thought,  and  strengthen  their  faith  in  Christianity  by  show- 
ins:  it  to  be  at  once  rational  and  vital. —  The  Christian  Union. 


Published  by  HARPER   &  BROTHERS,  New  York 

t^F^  For  sale  by  ail  booksellers,  or  luill  be  sent  by  the  publishers,  postage  prepaid,  to  any  part  of  the 
United  States,  Canada,  or  Mexico,  on  receipt  of  price. 


A    STUDY    OF    DEATH 

By    HENRY    MILLS    ALDEN 

Author  of  "  God  in  His  World,"  etc.     Post  8vo,  Half  Leather,  Uncut 
Edges  and  Gilt  Top,  $i   50, 


The  extraordinary  success  of  Mr.  Alden's  previous  book,  which  was  pronounced 
"  the  most  successful  work  of  religious  thought  of  the  season,"  and  "  the  most  note- 
worthy book  of  a  religious  kind  (in  style  as  well  as  in  substance)  published  in  Eng- 
land or  in  America  for  many  years,"  insures  a  suitable  reception  for  "  A  Study  of 
Death  " — a  book  wholly  uncommon,  spiritual,  hopeful,  and  altogether  important. 

Its  table  of  con- 
tents includes  the  fol- 
lowing titles  : 

PROEM  —  The 
Dove  and  the  Ser- 
pen t .  FIRST 
BOOK  —  Two  Vi- 
sions OF  Death — 
Chapter  I.  The  Body 
of  Death  ;  Chapter 
II.  The  Mystical 
Vision.  SECOND 
BOOK— Native  Im- 
pressions. THIRD 
BOOK  — Prodigal 
Sons  :  A  Cosmic 
Parable— Chapter  I. 
The  Divided  Living  ; 
Chapter  II.  The 
Moral  Order ;  Chap- 
ter III.  Ascent  and 
Descent  of  Life. 
FOURTH  book- 
Death  Unmasqued 
— Chapter  I.  A  Sin- 
gular Revelation  ; 
Chapter  II.  The 
Pauline  Interpreta- 
tion ;  Chapter  III. 
Christendom  ;  Chap- 
ter     IV.    Another 

World.  HENRY    MILLS    ALDEN 


Date  Due 


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IN  U.  S.  A. 


1    1012  01003  9651 


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